“Recovery is not the absence of symptoms,” said Wilma Townsend, M.S.W., keynote speaker at APA's Institute on Psychiatric Services, in San Francisco yesterday. Townsend is a public health analyst at the Center for Mental Health Services in the Consumer Affairs Office of SAMHSA. She is a recognized national consumer leader in the recovery movement and has written two books in this area—Emerging Best Practices in Mental Health Recovery, Eds. 1 and 2 and Consumers in the Mental Health Workforce: A Handbook for Community Providers. Townsend spoke about her own experience in recovery from mental illness and urged psychiatrists at the meeting to involve patients and their families in a treatment plan aimed at full recovery. For more information about recovery, see Psychiatric News.
(Image: Mark Moran)