Recovery-based practice: do we know what we mean or mean what we know?

The concept of recovery is now widely promoted as the guiding principle for the provision of mental health services in Australia and overseas. While there is increasing pressure on service providers to ensure that services are recovery oriented, the way in which recovery-based practice is operationalized at the coalface presents a number of challenges. These are discussed in the context of five key questions that address (i) the appropriateness of recovery as a focus for service delivery, (ii) the distinction between recovery as a process and an outcome, (iii) the assessment of recovery initiatives, (iv) the alignment of recovery with current service delivery models, and (v) the risks associated with recovery-based practice. It is argued that these questions provide a framework for a debate that must extend beyond patients and providers of mental health services to the broader public, whose attitudes will ultimately determine the possibilities and limits of recovery-oriented practice