Having a background in psychiatry and working in a mental health hospital, I’ve been seeing people coping with a wide range of mental health problems: schizophrenia and psychotic disorders, affective disorders like depression or mania, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, post-traumatic disorders, and many other diagnoses. Within the psychiatric medicalised atmosphere, I endeavoured to see people beyond their diagnostic category and focused on individual development and recovery.

 

This understanding is rooted in what is known as the Recovery Model of psychiatric disability. This model offers to rethink mental health beyond the medicalised model of symptoms, diagnostic category  and medical treatment. Rather, it moves to establish a more integrated understanding of every person that comprehends the situation beyond the illness and takes into account the broader perspective of a person's life. Through this understanding, in creating a space between the person and the illness, it is also possible to recognize the consequences of social categories of mental illness that many times create its marginality and stigma. 

 

As I have seen many times, a therapy that is informed by this perspective could move to establish the process of Recovery, a personal development that recognizes the specific unique situation of every patient and incorporates his or her multiple parts in a way that enables growth towards a meaningful and fulfilling life.