May 2020 – MGH Center of Excellence for Psychosocial and Systemic Research

What’s in a recovery story?

For the past 15 years, the MGH Schizophrenia Program has hosted an annual Public Education Day for individuals with lived experience and their families. Without a doubt, the most popular component of this event that has been a panel of 3-4 people with lived experience talking about their recovery. This positive reception and my own reactions over the years as a clinician to hearing about and witnessing the journey from struggling to recovery has made me reflect on the function of recovery stories…

Recovery Story: Ryan Markley

“I am a single mom, artist, and consumer of a broken mental healthcare system for over 40 years. Most of my life, I struggled with extreme emotional states, severe mood fluctuations, suicidal thoughts, unusual experiences, and the side effects of a myriad of psychiatric medications…

Recovery Story: August Rosenberg

“I grew up in an expressive, thoughtful household. I was always interested in creativity and thinking. But as I entered my teens, I started smoking pot. I had found excitement in learning until sophomore year of high school, when I became reserved and felt as though existence was meaningless. Everything was grey…

Recovery Story: Anne Whitman

“At the age of 33, I was running education programs at Harvard Business School (HBS), married, and mother of a new baby daughter. Shortly after I gave up nursing my daughter, I began to feel that my house and HBS were under electronic surveillance so I asked the Dean to bring in the police to investigate…

On becoming or working with a CPS in Massachusetts

A Certified Peer Specialist (CPS) is a person who has experienced mental health issues, trauma and/or substance-use issues and has been through training designed to enable them to help others through similar situations. CPSs hold a unique role in the field of Mental Health Care. They provide emotional support, advocacy, and share community resources from the perspective of someone who identifies as having first-hand lived experience of recovery…

Benefits of peer support: What can the data tell us?

The availability of peer support services has skyrocketed in recent years and is expected to continue to grow, in part from a focused and determined peer advocacy movement. While many peers and service users attest to the benefits of peer support services in enhancing recovery and wellness, the research literature is dominated by mixed reports about the effectiveness of peer support services. However, we argue this should not be taken as evidence that peer support services are not effective for several reasons which we outline below…

Per aspera ad astra – Through hardship to the stars: The role of psychiatry on the long and stony road towards recovery

“Recovery” is one of those tricky words in mental health. It carries a generally positive connotation to some, but not all, and means different things to different people. Some equate recovery with being “cured,” returning to a former state of wellness, or as synonymous with no longer needing psychiatric medications. Others conceptualize recovery as the development of self-acceptance, meaning and purpose in the face of adversity. In this opinion piece, I examine my own use of the term recovery…