Emotional stages: Consumers and family members recovering from the trauma of mental illness

People with severe mental illness experience a profound degree of loss. Recovery from severe mental illness involves grieving this loss and adapting one's social role to a restructured sense of self. In this article the authors describe several conceptual models of loss and introduce two additional models specific to the experience of people with mental illness and their family members. The BRIDGES program and the Journey of Hope are peer-taught programs that offer education and support to people with severe mental illness and their families. Within these programs, the models function to validate participants' experience of loss as normal and to provide a structure for a new sense of self. This helps people with severe mental illness and their families to move from isolation and loveliness to empowerment and reconnection with an ordinary life.