Recovery and Wellness: Models of Hope and Empowerment for People with Mental Illness

Learn to harness the process of recovery from mental illness for use in the transformative healing of your OT clients!

This informative book for occupational therapists describes the Recovery Model from theoretical and experiential perspectives, and shows how to use it most effectively. It examines the major constructs of the model, describes the recovery process, offers specific OT approaches to support recovery, and provides guidelines for incorporating wellness and recovery principles into mental health services.

This unique book you will show you:

• how recovery--in this case from schizophrenia--can be used as a transformative healing process
• the challenges and benefits of a dual role as a mental health professional and a consumer of mental health services
• the story of one occupational therapist’s journey of discovery in relation to her own mental illness
• why treating mental illness as a medical problem can be counterproductive to recovery
• three different teaching approaches--the executive approach, the therapist approach, and the liberationist approach--and how they lead to dramatically different outcomes
• the vital relationship between occupational therapy and recovery and wellness--with an enlightening case study
• how to use the Adult Sensory Profile to evaluate and design interventions for sensory processing preferences
• a system for monitoring, reducing, and eliminating uncomfortable or dangerous physical symptoms and feelings
• how to establish partnerships between mental health researchers and persons with psychiatric disabilities