As mental health recovery gains traction, many people have put forward varying definitions. Few attempts have been made to create a dimensional analysis of the recovery literature that assesses the growing consensus about what recovery is or what its definition should entail. This paper incorporates an ecological framework to take the individual's life context into account while emphasizing both the reestablishment of one's mental health (i.e., first order change) and the mitigation of the oppressive nature of barriers imposed by the greater community (i.e., second order change) so that people may experience social integration and community inclusion.

This qualitative study examines first person accounts of recovery from psychiatric disability. Common themes and patterns are identified and findings are linked to narrative and resiliency theories. Implications for policy, practice, and research are provided.

The field of residential services has used the residential continuum as its predominant model or paradigm for the last decade. The old paradigm is breaking down under pressures that demand attention to basic housing needs. This article describes the basic concepts inherent in the paradigm shift that is moving the field toward supported housing models.

To the people of Canada, I say welcome us into society as full partners. We are not to be feared or pitied. Remember, we are your mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, your friends, co-workers, and children. Join hands with us and travel together with us on our road to recovery. 1, p xxi Q ualitative research is not new to psychiatry. Classic texts of the institutional era, such as Stanton and Schwartz's The Mental Hospital, 2 Caudill's The Psychiatric Hospital as a Small Society, 3 and Goffman's Asylums 4 all made ample use of ethnographic methods including participant observation. Estroff introduced these methods into community psychiatry in the 1970s through her ethnographic study of an early Program for Assertive Community Treatment Team in Madison, Wisconsin, resulting in her equally groundbreaking book Making it Crazy. 5 By the end of the 1980s, she had joined forces with Strauss to coedit a special issue of Schizophrenia Bulletin devoted to qualitative methods and investigations of the subjective experiences of people with serious mental illnesses, in which they issued a call for systematic research to be carried out in this crucial area. 6 In addition to

To help inform the design of a self-management intervention for improving the physical health of adults with serious mental illnesses, we conducted focus groups about their perceived medical care and physical health needs. Adults with serious mental illnesses participated in four semi-structured focus groups conducted at a transitional living facility, a social club, and a Hispanic outpatient mental health clinic. Questions included their recent experiences of seeking medical care, the effect of having a mental illnesses diagnosis, strategies for active self-care, and perceived barriers to better physical health. In addition to various systemic barriers to better medical care, participants articulated limited knowledge and self-efficacy regarding active self-management of their physical health. Despite their interest in learning more about health promotion, most participants expressed a sense of personal futility and powerlessness in improving their health. These data suggest that any effort to improve the wellbeing of these adults will need to address self-efficacy in the hope of improving self-care for their physical health needs.