Person-Centered Care for Mental Illness: The Evolution of Adherence and Self-Determination

Many people with serious mental illnesses opt to not seek mental health services, or drop out of interventions early. As a result, their condition may become more disabling. In the past, mental health professionals considered this behaviour to be a failure to comply with or adhere to treatment. Such adherence plans are, however, at odds with emerging empirical research and modern philosophies of recovery and personal empowerment.

Using the latest outcomes research, authors in this volume show that having control over one’s life goals and treatment plan is essential to clients’ recovery. They also demonstrate how person-centered care can take place across various contexts, including mandated treatment, psychotherapy, medication management, supported employment, family education, complementary medicine, and peer support.

Readers will familiarize themselves with practices that enhance self-determination among people with serious mental illness. These include collaborative goal setting, motivational interviewing, and creating psychiatric advance directives. Also reviewed here are cognitive behavioural and rehabilitative interventions that help people with information processing difficulties to better understand their health options.

In the new person-centered care environment, recently codified in the Affordable Care Act, people are seen as consumers of mental health services rather than patients who must comply with doctor’s orders. The ideas presented in this volume are the future of care for the seriously mentally ill.