Recovery, defined as a personal process of living with mental illness, has become a prominent concept in mental health care. We aimed to map the state of the art of conceptualizing recovery, its promoting and impeding factors, recovery-oriented practice, and the assessment of recovery. A scoping review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses was performed. Systematic searches were conducted, supplemented with hand-searching in reference lists. Of 228 articles that were identified and 33 that were reviewed, a total of 25 were included. This review showed that the CHIME conceptual framework for personal recovery is widely endorsed, containing the elements of connectedness, hope and optimism, identity, meaning in life, and empowerment. Although personal recovery first and foremost starts from individual preferences, the CHIME framework should be adapted according to culture and unique population characteristics. "Difficulties and trauma" should be added, and the person's choice, risk taking, and coping with challenges should be emphasized. Barriers to recovery are stigma and negative effects of mental health services and medication. Facilitators of recovery include spirituality, personal agency, and social support. Recovery-focused interventions, in which peer providers are involved, enhance recovery, hope, and empowerment. For assessing recovery outcomes, multiple instruments are accepted as methodologically sound. Personal recovery is conceptualized as complementary to clinical recovery and represents processes rather than outcomes. Additional work is needed to bridge the gap between the concept of recovery-oriented practice and routinely provided interventions. A broad framework of recovery is needed, and more research is needed into the working mechanisms of personal recovery processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Introduction: Recovery from serious mental illness has historically not been considered a likely or even possible outcome. However, a range of evidence suggests the courses of SMI are heterogeneous with recovery being the most likely outcome. One barrier to studying recovery in SMI is that recovery has been operationalized in divergent and seemingly incompatible ways: as an objective outcome versus a subjective process. Areas covered: This paper offers a review of recovery as a subjective process and recovery as an objective outcome; contrasts methodologies utilized by each approach to assess recovery; reports rates and correlates of recovery; and explores the relationship between objective and subjective forms of recovery. Expert commentary: There are two commonalities of approaching recovery as a subjective process and an objective outcome: (i) the need to make meaning out of one’s experiences to engage in either type of recovery and (ii) there exist many threats to engaging in meaning making that may impact the likelihood of moving toward recovery. We offer four clinical implications that stem from these two commonalities within a divided approach to the concept of recovery from SMI.

Objective: The current study examines the effect of perceived support from different agents (spouse, family, friends, religion—spirituality) on psychological distress experienced by women with advanced breast cancer and their male spouses.Methods: In all, 150 couples consisting of women with advanced breast cancer and their spouses completed the Cancer Perceived Agent of Support Questionnaire and the Brief Symptom Inventory Scale.Results: Spouses reported more psychological distress (global, depression and anxiety) than patients. Both patients and spouses report a similar level of spousal support, and spouses reported a lower level of support provided from family and friends. Perceived support in the current study contributed significantly to the explanations of global psychological distress, depression and anxiety both for patients and their spouses. However, the specific agents of support that were significant in explaining these outcomes varied between patients and their spouses. For patients, family support received by both patient and partner was the most important source of support, protecting from psychological distress, while for the male partners, support from friends was most important. Religious‐based support was found to contribute negatively to the psychological distress of the patient and spouse.Conclusions: This study emphasizes the role of breast cancer spouses as care receivers in parallel to their role as caregivers, which is especially important in light of the high psychological distress reported by the spouses. The findings support the buffering effect, which different agents of support have against psychological distress while facing cancer for both patients and spouses. Patients and spouses differ with regard to the agents of support possessing this buffering effect. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.