Recent developments in person-centered psychiatry: present and future psychiatric rehabilitation

Abstract

Psychiatric Rehabilitation (PSR) focuses on person-centered and evidence-based sets of mental healthcare practices that facilitate the recovery of people with mental health challenges. PSR aims to enhance and maintain adaptive skills and supports for personally meaningful and valued social roles. Research in PSR continues to progress, with growing knowledge and evidence to support PSR practices and the provision of mental health services within a recovery-oriented framework. As one of the more person-centered sets of healthcare practices, a periodic review of recent and developing PSR literature is warranted for its own sake and for the consideration of how lessons from PSR may be transferable to other areas of healthcare. Recent developments and future directions in PSR addressed here relate to (1) enhanced conceptual understanding of recovery, (2) increased understanding of how individuals and families cope with mental illness, (3) PSR ethics, (4) increasing use of technology in PSR practices, (5) integration of evidence-based and promising practices, (6) psychiatric leisure rehabilitation and (7) PSR education and systems. These areas of focus are discussed in a selective review of the literature and a clinical case example which illustrates how PSR practices can facilitate recovery.