What do we learn from schizophrenic subjects in remission?

The concepts of remission and recovery applied to schizophrenia refer to different processes of the positive evolution of the trouble: A psychiatric one and the other one more psychological. In this paper, we aim to better understand and characterize the links between these two continuums of evolution. Our qualitative study is based on the narratives of two subjects suffering from schizophrenia, presenting different clinical profiles according to the criteria of the symptomatic and functional remission. We recorded with the consent of both subjects a semi-structured interview built around three topics: The history of the disease, the lived-experience of the disease and the projection onto the future. Considering the recovery process, our results highlight a different attitude toward the disease between the two patients. The psychological evolution appears relatively independent of the psychiatric criterion of the symptomatic remission. Taking into consideration our qualitative analysis, the recognition of the disease and the integration of its lived-experience to the personality can be conceived as stages of the process of the "recovery of the self' (Davidson, 2008). (C) 2011 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.