Traditionally, the mental health arena is highly influenced by the medical model where severe mental illnesses, are considered chronic with irreversible neuropathological brain changes and information-processing deficits ( 4). People with mental illnesses were addressed as consumers in this paper. A process for practitioners to engage in strengths-based approach was also presented. This paper also drew some beginning parallels of the strength-based approach to mental health recovery and present supporting evidence from the literature. This paper started with a review of the social and economic challenges in the mental health arena to introduce the context for strengths-based approach. The strengths-based approach does so by focusing the attention on individuals’ attributes that promote health, instead of focusing on symptoms and pathologies that induce sickness. In 1979, the term “salutogenesis” was coined by Aaron Antonovsky, a professor of medical sociology, to go beyond looking at disease to focus on factors that support human health and well-being ( 3). The emphasis has been on looking for pathologies or symptoms in people with mental illnesses based on the diagnostic criteria for mental disorders. Many health systems have traditionally adopted a medical view of mental disorders based on diagnostic categories such as ‘schizophrenia’, ‘bipolar disorder’ and ‘personality disorders’. According to a study by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001, mental illnesses rank first in terms of causing disability as compared to other diseases ( 2). The cost of lost employment or decreased productivity and social welfare programs have been estimated at USD 273 billion a year of which about USD 70 billion is the estimated cost of untreated mental illnesses ( 1). Mental disorders cost the United States’ healthcare system billions of dollars per year. Mental health problems have become one of the major priorities for legislators and policy makers.
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