‘Success, Social Value, and Personal Mission (Part Two)’ by Forbes

Pat-Deegan-300x211The second part of a Pat Deegan interview by the business magazine Forbes.

‘We’re talking with Pat Deegan, creator of CommonGround, a web-based application that empowers patients recovering from mental illness to take a more active role in their recovery.

A former schizophrenia patient in her teens, Pat overcame a diagnosis of complete disability to become an internationally-recognized psychologist, and founder of a Personal Medicine system that empowers people diagnosed with mental conditions, working with their care providers and their communities, to take control of their own treatment and personal recovery.

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‘Success, Social Value, and Personal Mission (Part One)’ from Forbes

Pat-Deegan-300x211When have you seen a recovery article on the Forbes website. Well here goes, the first of two on Pat Deegan. It’s been a great year for Pat and for all those people she has helped by her work.

‘Pat Deegan is the creator of CommonGround, a web-based application that empowers patients recovering from mental illness to take a more active role in their recovery. Pat’s own journey began in her adolescence. At 17 she was diagnosed schizophrenia. Psychiatrists told her that schizophrenia is a disease from which nobody recovers. They advised her to retire from normal life, avoid stress, and take high dose antipsychotic medication regularly.

It turned out that the treatment was as disabling as the disorder. Most disabling of all was the prognosis of doom and hopelessness surrounding the diagnosis and treatment.

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‘Personal medicine, power statements and other disruptive innovations in healthcare technology’ by Pat Deegan

patdeegan_photoI’ve just found this exciting article by Pat Deegan which she wrote for the Scottish Recovery Network (SRN). In my humble opinion, Pat’s CommonGround approach will have an enormous impact in the mental health field.

The SRN writes: “Given her hugely influential writing and personal reflections, research interests and involvement in various policy and practice initiatives, Pat Deegan is arguably the single most influential person within the international recovery movement. Her work today is strongly focused on shared decision making approaches and here she describes how the CommonGround approach, which she has developed, has real potential to encourage systems change towards recovery.”

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