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Recovery 101: For Those Who Thought They Couldn’t Recover
Advocate for the mental health recovery movement Pat Deegan wrote, “The professionals called it apathy and lack of motivation. They blamed it on our illness. But they don’t understand that giving up is a highly motivated and goal-directed behavior. For us, giving up was a way of surviving....
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Finding the Right Tools for the Job
As a provider of mental health services, offering a person-centered approach to recovery calls clinicians to not only be flexible, but also objective in order to systematically address the needs unique to each individual. Recovery is not always smooth and positive. When a consumer is marked as...
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NYSPA Report: How Will New York State’s Transition to Medicaid Managed Care Impact Those with Serious Mental Illness?
Skepticism, not cynicism, will be in order during the coming year as New York State’s efforts to place all of its Medicaid enrollees, including those with serious and persistent mental illness, into Medicaid Managed Care Plans (MMCPs) is realized. Reaching this goal is an important part of the...
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Ascent into Love: Surviving Schizophrenia
Every person needs to be touched, supported and nurtured by the environment in which they live in order to grow. The earth’s immense force of gravity, whether physical or psychological, is too much for us to bear alone. Each of us takes a turn at holding each other’s weight, much like the spine...
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A Handshake that Inspired a Recovery: The History and Future of Mental Health News
Let me tell you a true story about a simple handshake that saved the life of a young man from New York suffering with mental illness. The year was 1987 and he was 38 years old. He had always been a happy and productive person throughout his entire life. He had earned a master’s degree and...
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A Person-Centered Spiritual Recovery Tool for Hospitalization and Beyond
The enormous charge to the mental health care system to keep hospital length-of-stays brief while delivering Person-Centered care grows increasingly complicated. One key to meeting regulatory mandates while focusing on long-term healing is to use simple spiritual recovery tools that people can...
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The Family Role in Recovery: Understanding the Illness and Embracing the Process
The fear and distress are unimaginable when serious mental illness strikes families. They become confused when their loved one acts in an erratic or unfamiliar way and may feel helpless when a child or adult refuses treatment. New concerning behaviors emerge, and aspects of their loved one’s...
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The Evolution of Recovery-Oriented Services in NYC and at MHA-NYC
New York City has a long and proud history of providing a wide range of recovery-oriented programs for individuals with serious and persistent mental illness. Following in the activist path of Clifford Beers who started the modern mental health movement in 1909, six former psychiatric patients and...
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SAMHSA’s Working Definition of Recovery
For over 20 years, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has fostered recovery and social inclusion for Americans with mental and/or substance use disorders. Over the years, it has become increasingly apparent that a practical, comprehensive working definition of...
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Recovery-Oriented Practice and Health Care Reform
One common criticism of the concept of recovery is that, while it has offered a hopeful—even inspiring—vision for persons with mental illnesses and their loved ones, it has not provided concrete guidance for how mental health care needs to change in order to be more effective in promoting it....
