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The author reflects on the use of collaborative partnership models in healthcare in providing medical care for people with psychiatric disabilities. It states that people with significant mental illnesses die on average 25 years sooner than the general population with the majority of those deaths due to preventable, treatable medical conditions. It talks about the lack of affordable medical care and on discrimination from medical care providers toward people with psychiatric disabilities.

A personal narrative is presented that explores the author's experience of being label a schizophrenic by mental health professionals and how a mental health model, called the Recovery Model, led to her unique path to recovery.