From Symptom to Meaning: Toward a Recovery-Oriented Psychotherapy in Severe Mental Disorder
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Abstract
For decades, research on severe mental disorder (SMD) has been dominated by a biomedical paradigm focused on symptom reduction and pharmacological efficacy. However, understanding human suffering in psychosis requires a broader perspective that integrates the psychological, social, and existential dimensions of experience. This paper proposes a shift from a symptom-control model of intervention toward a recovery-oriented psychotherapy, centred on the processes of connection, hope, identity, meaning, and empowerment described in the CHIME framework. Drawing on a narrative review of the literature and clinical experience, it examines the limitations of the traditional biomedical approach and advocates for a more relational, reflective, and humanized therapeutic practice, where recovery is understood as a process of self-reconstruction rather than mere symptom remission.
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