Content area
Full Text
Recovery is a process of gaining holistic balance when one faces illness, crisis, or trauma (Swarbrick, 2009); this unique healing process may include acceptance of the illness and its related challenges (i.e., stigma attached to diagnosis and treatment) while reconstructing attitudes, beliefs, life roles, and personal goals immersed in psychological symptoms and life stressors (McGruder, 2008; Swarbrick, 2009). Recovery is not "being cured" or "fixing the disabled," but an experience of the process, allowing each person to create a personal meaning of recovery (Deegan, 2004; Eakman & Eklund, 2012; Kuo, 2011).
Occupational therapy and the recovery model are both clientdriven practices that seek to build collaboration, nurture indepen- dence, encourage personal growth, stimulate client participation, support empowerment, and identify individual strengths (American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTA], 2011; Deegan, 1998; Roberts & Evenson, 2009; Sowers, 2005; Swarbrick, 2009). Occupational therapy practitioners in mental health settings can offer practical strategies to manage psychiatric symptoms, help clients identify healthy lifestyle choices and goals, and provide information on community resources during the recovery process (AOTA, 2011). Occupational therapy provides a person access to the human right of actively participating in occupations through a wide range of modalities in various settings to identify basic needs for recovery (AOTA, 2008; Roberts & Evenson, 2009). The holistic approaches of occupational therapy in client care place value in the unique experience of each person as he or she creates a personal meaning of the process of recovery. This article can provide support for occupational therapy practitioners in developing occupationbased recovery interventions for clients in mental health settings.
Components of Recovery and Occupational Therapy
The following sections are the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA's) 10 components of recovery (2006) and how they might be aligned with occupational therapy and its domain of practice (AOTA, 2008). The following literature was reviewed to provide a link between the principles and practices of occupational therapy and the core components of the recovery model. This review can help educate and inform occupational therapy practitioners within various mental health settings on how to best maximize the overlap between both perspectives when designing interventions.
Hope. Hope is the core and catalyst for the recovery process, which fuels the motivating idea that one can create a better...