Recovery in psychiatry

In recent years, the concept of recovery from severe mental illness has increasingly gained relevance in the mental health field. Countries all over the world have been introducing recovery policy into mental health services (e.g. Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, USA), including England and Wales (Department of Health, 2001). However, there is still debate about the concept, such as whether symptom reduction is central (Liberman & Kopelowicz, 2005) or not (Roberts & Wolfson, 2004). This editorial proposes a conceptual framework for recovery and identifies emergent practical issues.