Recovery, Empowerment, and Person Centeredness

Recovery from psychiatric disability is related to the idea of developing personal potentials and regaining a valid social role even with limitations caused by mental illness. The concept of Recovery as a movement builds on the engagement and concepts developed by people with a lived experience of psychiatric diagnoses, treatment, and rehabilitation efforts. The current orientation toward empowerment and patient self-determination in medicine at large as well as in psychiatry in particular puts new emphasis on subjective and individualized assessments and treatment approaches. The concept and practice of person-centeredness not only respect these developments, but do need them, having thus the potential to establish new forms of collaboration among clinicians, service users, and families through a common natural language.