WORK IS KEY TO RECOVERY

Work is a critical element in the recovery of people with mental illness. It offers more than a paycheck; it boosts self-esteem and provides a sense of purpose and accomplishment. Work enables people to enter, or re-enter, the mainstream after psychiatric hospitalization. Unfortunately, too often these individuals are prevented from finding employment because the supports that they require are lacking. The author, who himself has a psychiatric history and is speaking from firsthand experience, suggests some reasons for this, describes a number of successful consumer-run and other innovative vocational models, and promotes the concept of research to prove what works and what doesn't.