With the release of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health report (
2003), mental health clinicians and researchers have displayed a new level of interest in the concept of “recovery” as it applies to individuals with mental illness. Previously, outside a relatively small group of consumers and advocates, the concept of recovery as it applied to mental illness was generally unknown or misunderstood. For some, “recovery” has carried with it a tinge of grubbiness—associations with addictions and the struggle to overcome them, visions of folk who appear to be living on the edge of society gathering anonymously in smoky rooms, and God knows what they do there. …
