A New Direction to Psychiatric Wellness: Recovery Oriented Approach

Recovery is a process of change in which individuals struggle to improve their health and wellness, to maintain a life which they lead on their own and to reach their full potential. Definitions on recovery necessitated to make a distinction between the terms clinical recovery and personal recovery. Clinical recovery is a term of medical model which is defined by mental health professionals. It has meanings like symptom reduction or healing, restoring social functionality, turning back to previous health status of the patient and it is a reflection of the biomedical model. However, personal recovery is a concept which points out improvement and change process of individuals. Interest on the "recovery" concept increase gradually and developed countries have started to restructure their mental health systems by including recovery-oriented applications and service structures. In this article more attention will be paid to concept of personal recovery which means a change and improvement process, instead of discussing clinical recovery adopted by biomedical model. Although there are numerous publications related to recovery-oriented approach in the worldwide literature, a limited but increasing number of studies are encountered in our country. Historical process of recovery-oriented approach, definitions of recovery concept, recovery models, some of the guiding principles based on recovery-oriented approach, worldwide researches related to recovery-oriented approach and current situation in our country will be discussed in this article. With this review, it is expected to contribute guiding in terms of planning and performing these services in our country