Abstract

Psychiatric diagnosis serves many functions in the struggle for recognition, such as access to public mental health systems and legal compensation, but it is not necessarily well-equipped for the task of self-understanding and reconfiguration of personal values in the recovery process – and the likelihood of optimal outcome that is geared to the individual person's quality of life. Call this the transformative dimension of recognition in the complex journey from diagnosis to therapeutic empathy in the doctor–patient relationship.Patients who are diagnosed with a serious and enduring mental health condition often find it difficult to make sense of themselves in relation to their...