Monitor on Psychology - January 2012 - (Page 54)

I am pleased that APA is one of the organizations involved in moving this initiative forward,” says Gwendolyn P. Keita, PhD, executive director of APA’s Public Interest Directorate. “Recovery is a growing movement, and it is important that psychologists are involved.” Research changes minds “Until fairly recently, it was assumed that people with serious mental illness would never recover,” says Mary A. Jansen, PhD, who chairs APA’s Task Force on Serious Mental Illness and Severe Emotional Disturbance and is a member of the Recovery Advisory Committee that guides APA’s Recovery to Practice initiative. “Individuals were often warehoused in state mental institutions.” When new medications allowed many of those people to return to their communities, most psychologists and other mental health practitioners still believed they would never regain full functioning, says Jansen, director of Bayview Behavioral Consulting in Vancouver. Then research by psychologists and others in the 1970s began to show that people could recover, and individuals with serious mental illnesses began to advocate for services that would help them achieve recovery. By 2003, mental health recovery had become the overarching goal of President George W. Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. The commission’s 2003 report, Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America, argued that the nation’s mental health system was broken and identified the major flaw as the lack of a vision of recovery. The commission also laid out a challenge: “We envision a future when everyone with a mental illness will recover, a future when mental illnesses can be prevented or cured, a future when APA encourages psychologists, consumers and others to get involved in its recovery to Practice initiative: • Join APA’s public Recovery to Practice email discussion list: Go to listserv@lists.apa.org, leave the subject line blank and write “Subscribe RTPPUBLIC [first name] [last name] in the message body. • Submit comments about the Recovery to Practice project, your experiences or anything else having to do with recovery: visit http://rtp. open-comments.sgizmo.com/s3. • Get more information: Visit the Recovery to Practice website at www.apa.org/pi/mfp/ psychology/recovery-to-practice/index.aspx or contact APA at mfp@apa.org or (202) 336-6127. Get involved mental illnesses are detected early and a future when everyone with a mental illness at any stage of life has access to effective treatment and supports — essentials for living, working, learning and participating fully in the community.” Now the Recovery to Practice initiative is working to make that vision a reality. “It’s really no different than if you have a heart attack or another chronic illness,” says Jansen. “Once you recover from the acute stage, you generally begin a recovery process, with a team of professionals and interventions all working toward helping you get back to the highest level of functioning you can achieve.” Now the push is on to get that same focus on rehabilitation into the mental health field and into the mainstream of psychology, says Jansen. “In the late 1970s into the 1990s, interventions were specifically designed for people with serious mental illnesses, many of whom had lost considerable functioning in part because they had languished in environments where no one believed they could do anything,” she says. In the same way that cardiologists might encourage heart attack patients to stop smoking, start exercising and work on lowering their cholesterol, she says, psychologists and others committed to a recovery-oriented approach now use psychosocial rehabilitation interventions to assist people with mental health conditions. These services, says Jansen, are designed to involve individuals in a partnership with professionals as they try to gain — or regain — a meaningful life, however they define it. That recovery-oriented approach shouldn’t just be used with people who have severe depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other serious mental illnesses, adds Jansen. It’s also useful for any mental health condition that keeps someone from functioning as well as he or she could. In 2009, APA’s Council of Representatives passed a resolution endorsing the concept of recovery for people with serious mental illness. “This resulted from a commitment by APA’s Committee for the Advancement of Professional Practice (CAPP) to place increased emphasis on recovery within psychology practice,” says Katherine C. Nordal, PhD, executive director for APA’s Practice Directorate. But the recovery movement hasn’t become well integrated into psychology yet, says Andrew T. Austin Daily, the APA staffer who directs the association’s Recovery to Practice project. An analysis by APA staff, the Recovery Advisory Committee and APA’s Committee for Assessment and Training in Recovery revealed multiple economic, political, social and technological barriers to integrating recovery into psychology. One obstacle is inadequate reimbursement for providing recovery-related services. Some psychologists are reluctant to change their practice orientation; others may fear people with serious mental illnesses. There’s a shortage of affordable housing options, supported employment programs and other services that M o n i t o r o n p s y c h o l o g y • J a n u a ry 2 0 1 2 54 http://rtp.open-comments.sgizmo.com/s3 http://rtp.open-comments.sgizmo.com/s3 http://www.apa.org/pi/mfp/psychology/recovery-to-practice/index.aspx http://www.apa.org/pi/mfp/psychology/recovery-to-practice/index.aspx

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Monitor on Psychology - January 2012

Monitor on Psychology - January 2012
Letters
President’s Column
Contents
Contents
From the CEO
Apa’s Statement on the Dsm-5 Development Process
Girl Scouts Badge Promotes Positive Psychology
Early Investments Pay Off for Poor Children, Study Finds
Apa Meets With Chinese Psychological Society to Further Interaction and Exchange
Unique Opportunity for Psychologists to Travel to Cuba
In Brief
Government Relations Update
On Your Behalf
Psychology’s Growing Library of Podcasts
Standing Up for Psychology
Judicial Notebook
Random Sample
Time Capsule
Questionnaire
Science Watch
Beyond Psychotherapy
Perspective on Practice
Yes, Recovery Is Possible
Inequity to Equity
Making E-Learning Work
New Standards for High School Psychology
A Trailblazer Moves On
Psychologist Profile
Plan Now for Psychology’s Regional Meetings
New Journal Editors
Apa News
Division Spotlight
American Psychological Foundation
Personalities

Monitor on Psychology - January 2012