Recovery

The text below is based on the QSOS pamphlet on recovery (2001). See our pamphlet in the following languages:

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Note: the following is intended to provide general information only. If you need medical advice, you should speak with your doctor or other health professionals.

‘Mental illness’ is still seen as a lifelong disease that has no cure. But over the last three decades, more attention has been paid to studies and stories about people coping and recovering from 'symptoms' like depression, anxiety, mood swings, 'delusions' and hallucinations. People 'recover' in all sorts of ways, and the journey is never simple, but even if we describe recovery simply as finding work, living independently, and keeping social contacts without experiencing ‘symptoms’, it may be acheived without drugs as Jonathan Nash showed us (see article).

Since 1988, psychiatric survivor Pat Deegan, PhD, has been telling professionals and others that people recover with basic friendly support alone. This is supported by much evidence, as Dr. Courtenay Harding, psychiatrist and professor, shows in numerous studies. It is estimated that one half to two thirds of people get much better or fully recover from 'chronic schizophrenia'. In 1979, the World Health Organization concluded that people in 'developing' countries recover more quickly than in countries with more hospitals and medications.7 Because people often recover more fully without medications, Dr. Harding says, "Systems of treatment are not as yet able to cure, but they should be able to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of natural self-healing processes."3

• Published research on recovery by psychiatric survivors in the Toronto GTA.
• Links to Alternative Strategies and Health Systems
• Further Reading and Research on Recovery

In the last few years, people who have experienced the mental health system have started operating peer-run services to support each other. Some professionals have responded by moving towards 'client-centred care' and 'empowering consumers'. William Anthony, PhD, says that recovery is a new way of working in mental health that may revolutionize the field, though old habits die hard.1 Diagnostic textbooks predict that natural recovery from ‘mental illness' like 'schizophrenia' is near impossible, so the concept of recovery is important whether the system can change or not. Psychiatric drug treatment is often used to control some symptoms, and patients are told to expect less in life, that they might not be able to work or hold meaningful relationships. Add to this the isolation and stigma of a psychiatric diagnosis that can leave people open to discrimination and many forms of abuse. In this context recovery is an important way of changing beliefs and attitudes.

Recovery Without Treatment: NY Times

Though recovery is possible, most people believe schizophrenia is an incurable genetic disease that needs medicating. No physical markers for schizophrenia, let alone the genes responsible, have yet been found. Research on identical twins shows less than half of them present schizophrenic symptoms in both twins.

It’s also said that the mentally ill have a high risk of passing on the illness to their children by example. Karl-Erik Wahlberg, a researcher in Finland, found in a nation-wide study that children of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia do not develop mental illness when adopted by nurturing families.9 Genetics may be important, but environment seems to play a bigger role than was once believed.

Recovery in the Mainstream: US News

If environment is key, what helps a person recover? A supportive friend or helper who listens without judgement, who believes in you during hard times, can be more helpful than professionally trained staff. According to studies done by Dr. Loren Mosher, people in small, inexpensive "safe houses", with no trained staff or medication, are able to reduce psychotic symptoms within six weeks6 (his work is now being repeated in Switzerland, Sweden and Germany). After 2 years in a "safe house", 58% of people were living independently (as opposed to 33% of people from hospital wards), and 32% were working full-time (in higher-status occupations compared to those from hospital).

A diagnosis of severe and persistent mental illness doesn’t have to mean "forever". If a person believes they can recover, and someone is willing to assist and nurture that belief, the odds of recovery are very strong.

Some Further Reading and Sources

1. Anthony, W. A. (2000). A recovery-oriented service system: Setting some system level standards. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal. 24 (2): 159-168.

2. Bassman, R. (2001). Overcoming the impossible: My journey through schizophrenia. Psychology Today. 34 (1): 34-40.

3. Harding, C. M., Brooks, G. W., Takamaru, A., Strauss, J. S., & Breier, A. (1987b). The Vermont longitudinal study of Persons with severe mental illness, I: Methodology, study sample, and overall status 32 years later. Am. J. Psychiatry, 144 (6): 718-726.

4. Harding, C. M., Zubin, J., & Strauss, J. S. (1987a). Chronicity in schizophrenia: Fact, partial fact, or artifact? Hospital and Community Psychiatry. 38 (5): 477-486.

5. Mental Health Weekly. (1999). New York moves toward recovery model with RFP release for special-needs plans. July 26. Manisses Communications Group.

6. Mosher, L. R., Vallone, R., & Menn, A. (1995). The treatment of acute psychosis without neuroleptics: Six weeks psychopathology outcome data from the Soteria Project. International Journal of Social Psychiatry. 41 (3): 157-173.

7. World Health Organization, (1979) Schizophrenia: An international follow-up study. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

8. De Girolamo, D. (1995). World Health Organization Studies on Schizophrenia: An overview of their results and their implications for an understanding of the disorder. The Psychotherapy Patient. 9: 213-31.

9. Wahlberg, K. E., Wynne, L. C., Oja, H., Keskitalo, P., et al,. (1997). Gene-environment interaction in vulnerability to schizophrenia: Findings from the Finnish Family Study of Schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry. Vol. 154 (3): 355-362.

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