© 2009 The Authors
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Editorial: Understanding and Measuring Recovery
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In 2003, 25 years after Rosalynn Carter chaired the first Presidential Commission on Mental Health, she testified before the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, chaired by Michael Hogan.1 When asked what the greatest advance had been in the intervening years, she said it was adopting the belief that people with serious mental illness could recover.
As heterogeneous as people with schizophrenia are, so too are their paths to recovery. Recovery may proceed along multiple domains: psychotic symptoms, cognitive capacities, functioning in terms of independent living in the community, competitive employment, social and intimate relationships ("a home, a job and a date on the weekend"), physical health, economic health, and other aspects of quality of life.2 To the extent we recognize and respond to the diverse domains of a person's life, we will help people in the work of crafting a life.
We comment on this series of
2 College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
3 New York State Office of Mental Health
1 To whom correspondence should be addressed; tel: 212-543-6950, fax: 212-543-5085, e-mail: se2176@columbia.edu.