Oil and Water or Oil and Vinegar? Evidence-Based Medicine Meets Recovery

With the increasing prominence of the notions of recovery and recovery-oriented practice, practitioners, program managers, and system leaders are increasingly asking about the relationship between evidence-based practices and recovery. After reviewing the concepts of recovery from mental illness, being in recovery with a mental illness, recovery-oriented care, and evidence-based medicine, the authors argue for a complementary relationship between recovery and evidence-based practices. This relationship is neither simple nor straightforward, but results in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts through which each element benefits from the influence of the other.