As you will discover in this text, the field of psychiatric rehabilitation (PsyR) has seen many
changes since 1975, when the International Association of
... [Show More] Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services
(IAPSRS, now USPRA) was established. Indeed, many significant changes have occurred since
1999, when the first edition of this book was published. For new practitioners, and students
planning to enter this exciting field, an understanding of history helps give a context for services
offered today. Throughout this text, you will find descriptions of how we got where we are today
and of the key players who helped get us here.
Although I was not present at the “birth” of IAPSRS, my work in the mental health field
parallels the trajectory of PsyR. Sometimes, I feel a bit like Forrest Gump (being in the right
place at the right time). I was fortunate to have had early exposure to ideas and people who
sparked and then affirmed my commitment to the principles of choice and voice (self-
determination and empowerment). Because of that early exposure, I was driven to find and
nurture a community of like-minded thinkers and, ultimately, was spared the challenge of
unlearning, as the concepts of recovery and rehabilitation have been more widely accepted.
The ideas that influenced me came from skeptics and radicals like R. D. Laing and Thomas
Szasz, who doubted and denied the existence of “mental illness,” and from well-known
counseling theorists like Rollo May and Carl Rogers, who advocated for understanding the
unique perspective of each individual service user. From philosophers like Alan Watts and
Ludwig Wittgenstein, and from fiction, including the works of Aldous Huxley, I developed
a sense that we each live within our own experience. For people who get diagnosed with
a psychiatric disorder, some experiences can be difficult and frightening, making it difficult to
manage from day to day. While I never fully subscribed to the idea that mental illnesses are
a myth, I have retained the belief that it is not possible to understand the “illness” without
understanding the person. The PsyR principles of individualizing services, active involvement
of the service user, and a focus on strengths became important to me long before I had heard
of PsyR [Show Less]