Chapter 5. Recovery & Resiliency
Mental health recovery is a journey of healing and transformation enabling a person with a mental illness to live a meaningful life in a community of his or her choice while striving to achieve his or her potential.
Recovery is an individual journey that follows different paths and leads to different locations. Recovery is a process that we enter into and is a life long attitude. Recovery is unique to each individual and can truly only be defined by the individual themselves. What might be recovery for one person may be only part of the process for another.
Recovery may also be defined as wellness. Mental health supports and services help people with mental illness in their recovery journeys. The person-centered planning process is used to identify the supports needed for individual recovery.
In recovery there may be relapses. A relapse is not a failure, rather a challenge. If a relapse is prepared for, and the tools and skills that have been learned throughout the recovery journey are used, a person can overcome and come out a stronger individual. It takes time, and that is why recovery is a process that will lead to a future that holds days of pleasure and the energy to persevere through the trials of life.
Resiliency and development are the guiding principles for children with serious emotional disturbances. Resiliency is the ability to "bounce back" and is a characteristic important to nurture in children with serious emotional disturbances and their families. It refers to the individual's ability to become successful despite the challenges they may face throughout their life.
