Moving beyond clinical recovery, personal recovery takes account of a person’s functioning, well-being, and their quality of life.1 Whereas symptomatic recovery is common after mood disturbances, e.g., first episode psychotic disorder, regaining functioning that was lost during the episode – functional recovery – is less common, even years afterwards.2
Over the course of the past forty-or-so years, and accelerating over the past decade, there has been an attempt to move beyond definitions of clinical recovery to personalized ideas of recovery that try to account for functioning.1,4 Such definitions have typically centred around personal recovery, social functioning, and occupational functioning.4 This trend towards personalized recovery in healthcare has been welcomed, although more research is needed to understand and predict personal recovery in bipolar disorder.4
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Bipolar disorder (BD) includes several disorders of emotion, thought, and energy, characterized by biphasic mood episodes of mania or hypomania and depression.