Recovery Conference 

The Work of Recovery: Implications for Psychiatry and Research
Held October 17-18, 1994, in Ossining, New York 

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Issues in Public Mental Health and the New York State Office of Mental Health's Community Support Programs, with funding from the Center for Mental Health Services, the conference brought together more than 80 mental health service recipients, practitioners, and researchers in a collective effort to rethink what recovery is all about. 

Over the course of the two-day meeting, participants had the opportunity to:

• Review research findings and hear personal narratives that illuminated aspects of the work of recovery
• Learn more about how the process of recovery unfolds and what facilitates it.
• Examine how individual practice or research might relate to recovery
• Explore what the experience of and reflections upon recovery might mean for the development of a mental health services research agenda and the research process of formulating questions, designing methods, pursuing answers, sharing results, and contesting the interpretations
• Begin to build a foundation for future collaborations among recipients, practitioners, policymakers, and researchers 

The first day of the conference opened with remarks from Dan Fisher, MD, PhD, a psychiatric survivor and Executive Director of the National Empowerment Center in Massachusetts. Personal reflections on recovery were shared by three individuals who have long been active in the consumer/recipient movement -- Sally Clay, Amy Long, and Ed Knight, PhD. Dr. Richard Warner, a psychiatrist and anthropologist well known for his epidemiological work on the differential rates of recovery and interventions to facilitate the recovery process, delivered the keynote address, "The Work of Recovery: Perspectives from Research and Practice." 

A look at the New York Recovery Project served as a start to the second day of conference activities. A number of participants in this ongoing recipient-practitioner dialogue shared a videotape showing aspects of the recovery dialogue process, reflected on their perspectives and experiences as members of this unique group, and engaged fully in discussion with conference participants. Following the luncheon break, participants then reconvened in small groups to begin discussions on implications for research methods and a research agenda. Participants then came together to hear Julian Rappapaort, PhD, a researchers with more than 12 years of research experience with mutual help organizations for individuals in recovery, and Anne Krause, a peer advocate at the Mental Patients Liberation Alliance, each reflect on their vision of a collaborative research process.

The conference wrapped up with thoughts on the conference proceedings from David Anderson, formerly of the New York Times editorial board, and a look toward the future, laying the foundations for seeking answers to difficult questions.

According to conference coordinators, "The conference was generally seen as a good first step in rethinking our long range research agenda and research process, introducing the concept of widespread consumer involvement in the Center, the Nathan Kline Institute, and academic settings, and identifying a number of potential research areas relevant to the experience of recovery."

A videotape of the two-day proceedings is available by contacting the Center. 

The Center initiated several research projects on the theme of Recovery. You may access descriptions of these projects by going to Research Accomplishments



Bibliography

Below is a bibliography of articles that were made available to conference participants. 

Anderson, D.C. (1994). The politics of recovery. Remarks delivered at Crotonville [Recovery conference]. 

Campbell, J. The well-being project: Mental health clients speak for themselves. 

Campbell, J., Ralph, R.O., & Glover, R. (1994). From lab rat to researcher: The history, models, and policy implications of consumer/survivor involvement in research. Proceedings of the Fourth
Annual National Conference on State Mental Health Agency Services Research and Program Evaluation. Alexandria VA: National Association of State Mental Health Agency Program Directors
Research Institute. 

Clay, S. (1994). The wounded prophet.

Continelli, L. (1993, May 2). Getting off the roller coaster. Buffalo Magazine, pp. 10-17. 

Estroff, S.E. (1994, April). Address to the National Recovery Forum, Columbus, Ohio. 

Estroff, S.E., Lachicotte, W.S., Illingworth, L.C., & Johnston, A. ( 1991). Everybody's got a little mental illness: Accounts of illness and self among people with severe, persistent mental illness.
Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 5, 331-369. 

Everett, B., & Nelson, A. (1992). We're not cases and you're not managers: An account of a client-professional partnership developed in response to the "borderline" diagnosis. Psychosocial
Rehabilitation Journal, 15, 49-60. 

Fisher, D.B. (1994). A new vision of healing as constructed by people with psychiatric disabilities working as mental health providers. Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, 17, 67-81. 

Hopper, K. (1991). Some old questions for the new cross-cultural psychiatry. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 5, 299-330. 

Humphreys, K., & Rappaport, J. (1993). From the community mental health movement to the war on drugs. American Psychologist, 48, 892-901. 

Knight, E. (Special Edition). Self-directed rehabilitation. Albany, NY: Mental Health Empowerment Project. 

Long, A. (1994). Reflections on recovery. Wakefield, MA: Author. 

Lynch, K. ( ). Psychiatry and mental health: The unmet needs of women. Western New York Mental Health World. Buffalo: Mental Health Association in Erie County. 

McLean, A. (1994). Empowerment and the psychiatric consumer/ex-patient movement in the United States: Contradictions, crisis and change. Soc. Sci. Med.

Rappaport, J. (1993). Narrative studies, personal stories, and identity transformation in the mutual help context. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 29, 239-256. 

Rappaport, J. (1981). In praise of paradox: A social policy of empowerment over prevention. American Journal of Community Psychology, 9, 1-25. 

Strauss, J.D. ( ). Processes of healing and the nature of schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry. 

Strauss, J.S. (1992). The person-key to understanding mental illness: Towards a new dynamic psychiatry, III. British Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 19-26. 

Van Tosh, L., Finkle, M., Hartman, B., Lewis, C., Plumlee, L, & Susko, M.A. (1993). Working for a change: Employment of consumers/survivors in the design and provision of services for persons who are homeless and mentally ill. Rockville, MD: Center for Mental Health Services. 




Written by Elizabeth A. Pease, M.S., October 1994
Email: elizabethpease@hotmail.com

Last updated on August 31, 1999