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The recovery model is a model that allows an individual to take back control of his life. It was primarily developed for serious mental disorders for which the biomedical model precluded any possibility of "real recovery" and control over life by individuals with mental disability. From a biopsychosocial viewpoint, the recovery model shifts the treatment objective from reducing symptoms to real integration and assignment of meaning of the life of individuals and their participation on equal terms in society. In other words, the perception is that recovery-as-healing goes beyond the concept of "therapeutic accompaniment" and "care", as formulated by Racamier (Le psychanalyste sans divan. La psychanalyse et les institutions de soins psychiatriques. Payot, Paris, 1970, Les schizophrènes. Payot, Paris, 1980, Le génie des origines: psychanalyse et psychoses. Payot, Paris, 1992), and is transferred into modern psychotherapeutic concerns about psychoses. In any event, that requires a change in culture and how psychiatry is practised. In other words, it requires the individual to function as a user of mental health services, as an "expert user" when it comes to his own illness and not as a passive user who complies with treatment guidelines. This change must be accompanied by a simultaneous change in the way services are structured and operate, and in the more general attitude of the community, so as to accept difference and to make individuals adjust to the "norm" of a condition for integration. This chapter explores the history and conceptual meaning of the recovery model and ends with critical remarks about how it has been applied at both Greek and international level. This path is accompanied by presentation of a clinical case to show how the recovery model can be used in practice.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-28616-7_9

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