“Personal Recovery” and Adolescent Mental Health in India: A Viewpoint

“Personal recovery” has been a guiding paradigm of mental health care in the recent times. Although “personal recovery” has been studied for adults with psychiatric illness, the phenomenon needs more exploration in the adolescent population who are developmentally diverse from adults. The aim of this paper is to advocate the need for aligning mental healthcare system for adolescents in accordance with the “personal recovery” paradigm, particularly in the Indian context. The authors anchor on the ecological framework to understand the uniqueness of “personal recovery” in adolescents and emphasizes on the inclusion of both micro and macro layers of the ecological system such as parents, school system, nongovernment organizations, lay counselors and Peer Support Groups in facilitating “personal recovery” in adolescents with psychiatric illness. Further, discussion has been extended toward incorporating components of “personal recovery” in the clinical space and spreading it out into the community to ensure the psychological well-being of adolescents with psychiatric illness.