Hope Plays an Integral Role in Recovery

Excerpts from the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health

Vision Statement: We envision a future when everyone with a mental illness will recover, a future when mental illnesses can be detected early, and a future when everyone with a mental illness, at any stage of life, has access to effective treatment and supports – essentials for living, working, learning and participating fully in the community.

Recovery refers to the process in which people are able to live, work, learn and participate fully in their communities. For some individuals, recovery is the ability to live a fulfilling and productive life despite a disability. For others, recovery implies the reduction or complete remission of symptoms. Science has shown that having hope plays an integral role in an individual’s recovery.

The Interim Report concluded that the current mental health system is not oriented to the single most important goal of the people it serves – the hope of recovery.

The recovery process is recognized as being highly individualized, varying significantly from one person to the next. However, all people experience recovery in some way at some point in their lives (Spaniol, Koehler, & Hutchinson, 1994). For this reason, we know that while an individual’s recovery process may take a unique path and have a unique outcome, that process is likely to be difficult and painful, to be complex rather than linear, and to require a significant amount of time.

Historically, people with terminal illnesses were considered an embarrassment to doctors. A patient who could not be cured was evidence of the doctors' fallibility, and as a result the doctors regularly shunned the dying with the excuse that there was nothing more that could be done.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross was a doctor in Switzerland who opposed this unkindness and spent much of time with dying people, both comforting and studying them. She wrote a book, (On Death and Dying) which included a cycle of emotional states often referred to as the Grief Cycle. A common problem she identified was that people can get stuck in one phase and not complete the grieving process.

There are striking similarities in the treatment of terminally ill and mentally ill patients. Spaniol and colleagues (1994) have identified phases in the mental health recovery process similar to those in the Grief Cycle with the same inherent dangers of individuals getting “stuck” at some point in the cycle of recovery.

Phases of the Recovery Process

• Shock
• Denial
• Depression/Despair/Grieving
• Anger
• Acceptance/Hope
• Coping
• Advocacy/Empowerment


From what are People Recovering?
• Life histories of abuse, neglect, deprivation, impoverishment,abandonment, and isolation
• Societal Stigma
• Failures of the mental health system
• Good intentions of mental health professionals
• Alcohol and drug addiction, etc.

Are you stuck somewhere in the recovery process? Listen closely to the words in the song “When you believe” from the video in this post and believe in yourself . . . your miracle awaits.