Healing vs. Recovery

Distinctions are sometimes made in the field of mental health between "recovery" and "healing". I have tended to think of the former as simply representing the cessation of the more unpleasant symptoms of mental illness, and as a mere "way station" to true healing.

I am persuaded now, though, that healing is better described as completed recovery. Recovery calls for good coping methods to deal with the effects of the trauma that induced the "illness" in the first place. Once such methods are in place (therapy, exercise, proper nutrition, prayer/contemplation, etc), and have become habitual, then we can begin to heal-or rather, continue to heal. Note that medication should be used only as a last resort, and patients should be weaned off all psychotropic drugs as soon as possible. Medication can do no more than mask symptoms-it can never promote growth.


What is healing, then? It is the casting off of all false selves. It is becoming truly what we are, with no accommodations to the trauma that caused the false selves to arise, or to social norms. Does that mean we become moral free agents? No, it means that our truest selves are driven by love for others, and ourselves. Evil is "unreal"-it exists, to be sure, but only as a manifestation of unpursued goodness.

The truth is, we tend to either follow social cues, and pursue a path of mindless conformity, or go our own way for its own sake, casting ourselves as contrarians, as relentless pursuers of Truth, when in fact we may just be snobs. (I tend to be guilty of the latter). Neither is healthy.

It may sound solipsistic, and excessively in tune with the mindless slogans of our warped culture, but in fact we only need to be ourselves. The best, truest version of ourselves. This is wholeness. This is the healed human.