ABSTRACT
The concept of the personal is political developed out of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s. It was an acknowledgment that the experiences, feelings, and possibilities of our personal lives are not just a matter of personal preferences and choices but are limited, moulded, and defined by the broader political and social setting. They feel personal, and their details are personal, but their broad texture and character, and especially the limits within which these evolve, are largely systemic. There is an enormous long-term cost both to society and to individuals within the current system, in which a bio-medical model dominates. Of course the biggest cost is the appalling personal cost to individuals. Acknowledgment enables people to develop true insight into their own distress and suffering which leads to an increasing sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. Recovery is an on-going process with no fixed endpoint and that each person’s recovery is unique.
