Recovery style from mental illness and long-term outcome.

Integration and sealing over have been identified as clinically distinct recovery styles from schizophrenia. Specific definitions and scales of these styles were applied reliably to 231 patients from the Chestnut Lodge follow-up study at long-term outcome (15 year average). Data were analyzed for the entire sample and for diagnostic subgroups: schizophrenia, schizoaffective and unipolar affective disorders, and schizotypal and borderline personality disorders. Results find that integration and sealing over are strongly correlated with functional outcome. While linked somewhat to type of psychopathology, these styles are best conceived as enduring personality trait characteristics in the nature of predictors.