July 2, 2008...7:07 pm

Pat Deegan, PhD: A Powerful Example of Recovery

Pat Deegan was hospitalized, diagnosed and treated for ”schizophrenia”.  The trauma she underwent from this experience later led to a thought….”I’m going to become Doctor Deegan, and change the mental health system….”

Her comments about medications being helpful may be upsetting to those who are dead-set against psychotropics, and her insistence that pills do not produce recovery may be equally unsettling for others.  But, her belief in recovery ought to be universal.  It is a message she delivers powerfully – based upon her own life experience.

Dr. Pat Deegan is a strong voice in the recovery movement, and serves as an inspiration – for all she’s been able to accomplish – in spite of the many challenges she’s faced along the way.

You can’t organize a recovery around a vacuum.  You can’t organize recovery around nothingness.  We need to organize our recovery around something.

Something that has meaning – something that has purpose – something that gives us a sense that ”I can begin to move”….

- Pat Deegan, PhD

Visit [Pat Deegan, PhD and Associates, LLC]

You Tube [Source]