Recovery: From a Personal Journey to Recovery-Oriented Care in in Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing
For APNA Recovery Council Chair Sue Brammer, PhD, RN, CNE, FAAN, who has worked in psychiatric-mental health nursing for decades, recovery is personal.
“I am 69 years old and have lived with a mental health condition since approximately age 18,” she explains. “My recovery journey really didn’t begin until my 40s, when I finally accepted that my condition was not going to go away, but I could still live a full, meaningful life. Through involvement with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and support from my family, close friends, and colleagues, I was able to celebrate my strengths and let go of shame and unrealistic expectations of myself.”
“Psychiatric-mental health nurses are instrumental in promoting recovery principles when collaborating with patients and colleagues, supporting families, and educating the public. My work with APNA allows me to pay forward lessons from first-person experience to other nurses so we can stay true to our patients,” she says.
In honor of National Recovery Month, Brammer reflects on how far we’ve advanced in recovery-oriented care since SAMHSA declared it a priority 15 years ago.
Defining Recovery
The Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing Scope and Standards of Practice defines recovery as: “The process in which people are able to live, work, learn, and participate fully in their communities. For some individuals, recovery implies the ability to live a fulfilling and productive life despite a disability. For others, recovery implies the reduction or complete remission of symptoms.”
Brammer offers up her own definition, based on personal experience:
“A more personal, succinct definition is that recovery is returning to a life you care about,” she says.
Recovery-Oriented Care
As defined by SAMHSA, recovery-oriented care is a person-centered, individualized approach to treatment that focuses on empowering people to reach their potential.
“Awareness of, and even agreement with, the concept of recovery-oriented care has gained traction,” says Brammer.
Recovery-oriented strategies currently used in practice include using person-first language, engaging peer support specialists, and teaching about brain health. The most important nursing intervention in recovery-oriented care, she says, is to advocate for:
- The patient’s voice to be given the same consideration as everyone else’s on the treatment team
- The patient’s choices, not the rest of the team’s, drive the treatment plan
“If nurses could ensure those two things through their advocacy, it would advance the cause for persons receiving care for mental health conditions immeasurably,” Brammer says.
APNA Recovery Council Work: Are recovery principles being taught in nursing programs and practiced in mental health care settings?
At this year’s APNA Annual Conference, the council will present If You Build It, They Will Come: Creating a Recovery-Oriented Work Environment. According to the council, while evidence shows that practicing recovery-oriented care is associated with improved patient recovery outcomes, many nurses report limited education on how to implement it.
To advance recovery-oriented care, “We need exposure to evidence-based practices so they can be widely implemented,” Brammer says. “I would like to see more studies conducted in the United States on recovery-oriented nursing interventions in hospitals, as competing interests in those settings make such interventions particularly challenging.”
As for recovery in education, Brammer says much progress has been made.
“Psychiatric-mental health nursing textbooks, for example, now address recovery, some devoting an entire chapter to it.”
At last year’s APNA Annual Conference the council presented findings from an informal literature review and survey of psychiatric-mental health nurse educators and recent graduates. Their findings indicated that students and educators often have different perceptions of whether recovery-oriented care has been taught.
>>> APNA Members: Want to help advance this work? Join the APNA Recovery Council!
FREE CE & More in Honor of National Recovery & Suicide Prevention month: Brush up on your skills for engaging with nurses in recovery, discover crucial considerations for youth suicide prevention, and more.
Updated September 2026. Published September 2025.
