Patricia Deegan was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 17. She has often told audiences what her psychiatrist said to her shortly after the diagnosis: she should consider working as a checkout clerk if she could manage it, lower her expectations, and not pursue more education. She went on to earn a doctorate in clinical psychology, become one of the most influential thinkers in the modern recovery movement, and develop a concept — personal medicine — that has changed how people with serious mental illness describe their own treatment.
Personal medicine, in Deegan's framing, is the set of activities, relationships, and meanings that a person uses to stay well — distinct from but coordinated with prescribed pharmaceuticals.
The concept
Deegan first wrote about personal medicine in the early 2000s, drawing on years of interviews with people taking long-term antipsychotic medication. She noticed that almost everyone described two kinds of treatment. There were the pills — which she called pharmaceutical medicine — and there were the things people did themselves to stay well, which she named personal medicine. Personal medicine included specific activities (running, gardening, prayer), relationships (a sister, a peer worker, a particular nurse), and meanings (purposes, values, faith).
The two were not in opposition. People took both. The trouble was that mental health systems tracked one carefully — adherence to pills was measured, charted, and discussed at every appointment — and ignored the other. Deegan's argument was simple: if a person stops their personal medicine, they get worse, sometimes faster than if they stop their pharmaceutical medicine. A treatment system that does not ask about it is missing half the picture.
Two kinds of personal medicine
Deegan has distinguished between two main forms:
- Activities that bring meaning, purpose, and value to life. Examples: parenting, art, work, faith community, gardening, running, volunteering. These are the activities that make a life worth living and that, in their absence, leave a person hollow even if symptom-controlled.
- Specific self-care strategies that reduce symptoms or improve functioning. Examples: a particular sleep routine, a daily walk, a phone call to a peer at a set time, a journaling practice, attending a particular group. These work like medicine in that the person knows from experience that they reliably help.
Why it changed practice
Before personal medicine entered the vocabulary, "non-adherence" was largely framed as a problem of the patient — someone who refused to take pills, often labelled as lacking insight. Deegan helped reframe it: people did not stop pills randomly. They stopped because the pills interfered with something else they valued — energy for parenting, sexual function, ability to study, alertness for work. In other words, pills could undermine personal medicine.
The clinical implication is concrete. A prescriber who knows what a patient's personal medicine is — and a patient who has named it explicitly — can make medication decisions that protect both. A young mother who needs to be alert at 6 a.m. for her child can have her dosing adjusted. A musician who needs fine motor control can avoid a medication that produces tremor. The conversation becomes joint, not adversarial.
CommonGround
Deegan and her colleagues turned personal medicine into a software tool called CommonGround, designed to be used in shared decision-making appointments between prescribers and patients. Before each medication review, the patient logs in (often in a clinic waiting room with peer support) and answers questions about their personal medicine, their goals, their concerns, and the side effects they are weighing. The output is a one-page summary that becomes the agenda for the appointment. CommonGround has been studied in multiple settings and is associated with better engagement and shared decision making.
Recovery as a stance
Beyond personal medicine, Deegan's broader writing — much of it freely available at patdeegan.com — has shaped how the recovery movement talks about itself. She has insisted that recovery is not a destination but a stance toward life: the choice to keep showing up, even when the illness has stolen years. She has been candid about her own ongoing experience, including periods of difficulty long after she became a psychologist. This has made her work credible in a way few clinicians can match.
Where personal medicine fits with other frameworks
Personal medicine sits naturally alongside WRAP (which captures personal medicine in its wellness toolbox), the CHIME framework (particularly the meaning and empowerment dimensions), and shared decision making as a clinical practice. It is not in competition with any of them; it is a piece of vocabulary that strengthens the whole.
How to use personal medicine in your own care
- Name it. Write down the three to five activities, relationships, or practices that make you feel most yourself. These are your personal medicine.
- Notice the trade-offs. If a medication is making any of your personal medicine harder — your energy for your kids, your ability to read, your sex life — that is information your prescriber needs.
- Bring it to appointments. A note that says "I want to be able to do X" anchors the conversation in something concrete.
- Protect it. When life gets full, personal medicine is what gets dropped first. It should be the last thing.
What her career argues
Deegan is sometimes grouped with Elyn Saks, Eleanor Longden, and Arnhild Lauveng as one of the public clinicians whose own histories of serious mental illness changed what the field believes is possible. The argument her life makes is hard to escape: the seventeen-year-old who was told to lower her expectations became a psychologist whose ideas are now taught in graduate programs around the world.
If you are in crisis or considering stopping medication abruptly, please talk to your prescriber first. Personal medicine works alongside, not instead of, careful clinical decisions. In an emergency call 988 in the US.
Further reading
For more, see Deegan's own essays at patdeegan.com, particularly "Recovery as a Journey of the Heart," and our pieces on WRAP and shared decision making.
This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified mental health professional. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 in the US, or your local emergency number.