STEP 1 Let’s Get Started
Psychiatric rehabilitation can be defined as a person recovering enough from the debilitating effects of mental illness to live a healthier and more productive life on one’s own terms. You’re rebuilding a life that you desire most.
Psyched Rehab is a peer-designed, self-directed guidance resource on psychiatric rehabilitation and lifestyle development. It includes a wealth of free online resources with tips and insights to guide you into a fulfilling life. The following pages contain all the essentials of developing your self-directed rehab plan.
The core reason for the Psyched Rehab resource is to help persons living with mental illnesses achieve enjoyable, meaningful, and productive lives on their own terms. Your rehabilitation will be engaging and challenging, sometimes fun and exciting, and always an enriching learning opportunity.
The essential value of this endeavor is empowerment to live in good health and spirits despite the psychiatric condition or disability.
As a peer psychiatric rehabilitation initiative, peer facilitator Thomas Elliot understands first-hand the impact of psychiatric illness and disability and its effects on all aspects of life. He is sensitive to what persons with psychiatric conditions go through. Tom also has life coaching credentials and experience that he brought to this project. He is NOT a licensed mental health professional.
All decisions and plans are your responsibility. This guide will help with discovery and decision-making, but it is the participant that ultimately leads the charge for recovery and lifestyle development.
Through your rehabilitation, you’ll develop discernment skills for deciding what path to follow, solving problems and self-motivating, and sharpening your thinking.
Success is measured by clear improvements in your ability to live well with your condition or disability, and your enjoyment of your unique happy lifestyle pursuits.
Now are you ready for rehab? Self-managed peer psychiatric rehab may be a beneficial way for many people to grow and develop and to live happier lives. Consider:
- Need for change. Do you see a need for change? How dissatisfied are you with your current situation? Are your life circumstances forcing a change?
- Commitment to change. Is the change necessary, positive, possible, and will you have support? Have you taken any actions already? Is it you that needs to make the change, or do the circumstances need to change?
- Environment. Consider what you plan to do and where. Are you knowledgeable or have any previous experience with what you seek?
- Self-awareness. Do you know what you like or don’t like, what you value most, and what are your strengths and areas for improvement?
- Comfort with Self-directed Rehab. Are you OK engaging your psychiatric rehab basically on your own? Are you committed to learning the process and pursuing changes to your life? Know that many social workers and counselors licensed to provide psychotherapy also could help you in a psychiatric rehabilitation.
It’s not all chocolate and root beer. Consider whether engaging in a rehab endeavor is a good idea, and at this time. Embracing change, though worthwhile, is not always best at all times. You may be concerned with the work level, adjusting to change, or concurrently managing your health condition. Yet we know that baby steps and focusing on one goal at a time is all that you need to do. Ultimately, you’ll be healthier and happier if you pursue rehabilitation.
Think about the three issues below when making your decision.
- To determine whether you could benefit now from rehab, start by summarizing what you hope to accomplish in this endeavor. What does success look like to you? When you have a fairly clear idea of the desired outcomes, self-directed rehab can be a useful tool for developing a strategy for achieving life goals with greater ease.
- Ask yourself whether you value new ideas and perspectives. The pages that follow likely will present fresh ideas and will certainly challenge your status quo.
- Ask yourself whether you are ready to devote quality time and the energy to improving your life.
The road ahead can feel long and overwhelming. To alleviate some of the stress, focus on milestones. Milestones are everywhere, such as the first semester, the first week of a new job, walking a mile. Concentrate on staying focused for an hour or up to a day instead of looking at everything ahead.
You can do it! Remember that every marathon starts with one first step. And motivation always follows behavior. In order to have motivation, you need to do motivation. Additionally, if you take “baby steps,” this works, too, because it gets you moving and then you’re building momentum that keeps you moving. With every simple win, you enhance your self-confidence, and this builds momentum as well. Before you know it, you’re running.

