This is a summary of a journal article that was one of the first to advocate for the implementation of the Recovery Model in mental health care. You may seek the full text at your library or search online for the article as a pdf.

1. William A. Anthony
Recovery from Mental Illness: The Guiding Vision of the Mental
Health Service System in the 1990’s
From Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, 1993, 16 (4) pp.11-23
This is a seminal journal article that is quoted in the equally
formative paper from the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (as
was) which was published in March 2008, ‘Making Recovery a Reality’.
If you are looking for empirical data or quantitative research
findings, with randomised control trials or similar validation, that
support the introduction of the Recovery Model into mental health
care, this paper does not do that. It is a short and easy to read
article that has its own approach to the validity of Recovery in
psychiatric contexts. The author seeks to establish that recovery is
an outcome from all types of healthcare settings, and that this is a
generic outcome which will apply universally, including to mental
health challenges. This is the main validation for the introduction of
the Recovery Model, rather than quantitative or other empirical
evidence as the justification for its takeup. The generic origins
proposed for Recovery are linked with the enthusiasm of the
User/Survivor/Consumer movement of the 1980’s and before, for
this model. Bill Anthony seeks to endorse the consolidation of
existing services in such a way that Recovery is enabled.
In the opening abstract, Bill Anthony states that recovery from
mental illness is the paradigm that will guide mental health care for
the 1990’s.

2. Bill then goes on to say that someone with a severe mental health
condition needs more than symptom relief. They have residential,
vocational, educational and social wants and needs. This has resulted
in a new way in which services are delivered and of how the wants
and needs of service users are perceived. Bill describes the
emerging community support system in America. There was
recognition not to isolate SU’s or to exclude them. There is
anecdotal evidence of improvement in outcomes for those receiving
CSS (a community support system) in the 1980’s including fewer
hospitalisations.
There emerged a more thorough and clear understanding of SU’s
needs in tandem with those of the psychiatric rehabilitation system.
There is a table showing, among other indicators, that people need
basic support (food and shelter) and also to be empowered by
exercising choice. The rehabilitation model had emphasised that
SU’s had functional (eg to get up in the morning, to get to
appointments (me)), disability, and handicap issues. It was the
mental illness and also its consequences.
Bill states that recovery from mental illness is possible even if
symptoms are not ‘cured.’ Consumers/survivors describe the
journey as deeply personal and a way of living a satisfying life with
limitations from the illness, a way of living a life of meaning and
purpose beyond the devastation of mental illness. Stigma is a big
problem, along with negative effects from unemployment and from
crushed dreams:- often a complex and time consuming process. Bill
states that recovery is a truly human experience, uniting all people,
as they all experience recovery from something, and then move on
to other interests and activities.

3. This journal article then maintains that there is no single measure of
recovery (Bill uses the lower case for recovery) but there are many
measures estimating various aspects.
For Bill in the USA in the 1990’s, recovery incorporates the
essential services of a community support system, as mentioned
previously. (Me: in the first quarter of the 21st century in the UK,
such support in the community as still exists is inadequate and liable
to be reduced further with planned continued government cutbacks).
Recovery system planners see the MH system as greater than the
sum of its parts. Bill Anthony describes ‘less’: less of impairment and
dysfunction, and ‘more’: more meaning and purpose. Outcomes include
self-esteem, empowerment and self-determination.
Bill Anthony agrees that recovery processes have not been
researched, but there are some basic assumptions. (Me: this is to
not include an evidence base of empirical statistics.) The task of
professionals is to facilitate recovery, with recovery being a common
human condition, a generic concept. Essential to recovery are
activities outside the world of mental health. There is mention of
someone who can ‘be there’ at crucial times. These are people who
believed in individuals when they did not or could not believe in
themselves (as with, for me, MM, the resource centre manager.)
Adopting a recovery approach can include either biological models or
psychosocial models of mental illness. Bill Anthony states that people
with blindness or other physical illness can recover even though the
symptoms remain. Recovery means more of life is lived symptom
free, and this feels often unplanned and unsystematic. If valued
functional tasks cannot be performed, there is loss of self esteem.
There is loss of rights and loss of equal opportunities, and also the
system, in trying to help, fosters lack of self-determination and
disempowerment because the system does things for people.

4. Sometimes people who have recovered from mental illness are
discounted as not ‘really been ill’ and may actually be considered as
fraudulent.
The process of recovery can be understood from experts by
experience. Most accounts of generic recovery include reference to
personal support. Recovery involves a new meaning and purpose
beyond the catastrophic effects of mental illness. Stimulants to
recovery may include personal example, books, films and groups. MH
professionals must make settings that trigger recovery. Generic
recovery includes strong emotions. Previous practice was not person
centred, not consumer-based, and did not describe benefits to SU’s.
He states that deinstitutionalisation was about use of buildings not
the effect on consumers/SU’s. The recovery vision speaks of how
service users will function. Bill ends with a statement that someone
with severe mental illness can grow beyond their illness.