Bridging Psychiatric Rehabilitation and Recovery in Schizophrenia: A Life's Work

For many years, schizophrenia was thought of as a lifelong deteriorating illness with little hope of improvement. However, recent naturalistic studies demonstrate that the course of the disorder is more positive than had been previously thought. With the advent of more effective pharmacological and psychosocial interventions for those with the disorder who continue to experience impairment and disabilities, the potential of recovery in schizophrenia has become increasingly acknowledged. This paper presents a brief history of the development of psychosocial interventions for schizophrenia and the role Robert Paul Liberman played in advancing psychiatric rehabilitation as an effective strategy for helping individuals with serious psychiatric illnesses live richer lives in the community. The core tenets of Liberman's work—community-based care, designing interventions to bolster (re)hablitation of life skills critical to successful functional adjustment, promoting widespread availability of effective interventions, emphasizing personalized goals as legitimate treatment targets, and recognizing the importance of cultivating enduring respectful relationships among professionals and consumers and those who care about them—are identified and their relevance to the evolving recovery movement is discussed.