A fundamental difficulty for the average person suffering from a work injury or stress problem is that medical treatment can sometimes lead us to become passive participants in our lives.  The person transfers the responsibility for their recovery to other people and waits passively to get better.  It is one of the things that causes people to get stuck in the compensation system.

Recently interviewed on Radio National by Steve Kinnane the American psychiatrist Dr Daniel Fisher made the point that a person has to take responsibility for themselves to recover.  Talking about mental illness Fisher said Daniel Fisher suffered from schizophrenia himself.  At the age of 24 he was a Bio Chemist studying the chemistry of schizophrenia when he discovered through his research “At first Daniel couldn't accept this conclusion and several times went temporarily into another reality, distraught because his life's work seemed to be worthless.  But, through therapy, family support and his own discovery that he had to take more responsibility for his life e.g. learning how to cook, how to clean, to help other people, Daniel discovered that he could help himself.  His breakdown became a breakthrough. He recovered to study psychiatry and is now the Executive Director of the , in Massachusetts.

“We are the most important medicine in the end, the people, every one of us, not just medical practitioners, but every person, each family member, every friend, the employer, every fellow worker plays an extraordinarily important role in a person's recovery,” says Fisher.

Asked how other people can help someone recover he replied “ We can learn to connect with people, learn to believe in people, learn to empower them and become a bridge back to the social world, to the workplace, so that people can live their dreams again.”

Dr Fisher's experience indicates that a person must take responsibility for their own recovery, and it clearly examples the important role the employer and work mates have in providing support.  Return to work planning and implementation should be a partnership process.