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 Moving On: A Guide to Good Health and Recovery for People with a Diagnosis of Schizophrenia
 Roz D'Ombraine Hewitt,
 Karnac Books
 ISBN 9781855754423,
 £14.99

 Star rating: 4/5

Anyone who has suffered from or cared for someone with a mental illness will tell you that the journey to recovery is a long, hard and rocky one, writes Georgina Wakefield. Any information that helps us along the way is invaluable.

Whatever your situation within this painful triangle, this book will help no end. It's about retrieving a meaningful life following a tragic event. The book focuses on a person-centred approach rather than the usual medical model. I particularly liked the chapter regarding counselling and psychotherapy.

Service users and carers are shell-shocked, grieving and disbelieving but this book will provide answers to so many of our unanswered questions. Lacing it with true case histories brings personal situations to life, instilling even further hope of recovery. Leaving no stone unturned, it covers the need for employment, talking therapies, attention to diet and much more. Focusing on a multi-pronged approach to a multi-pronged condition, this is a book about "real recovery" which isn't possible by relying on medication alone.

When my son became ill at 16 I felt as if we were in a wilderness of total confusion. Had we had access to a book such as this our journey would have been far less confusing and far more hopeful.

Moving On provides a map, a compass and a light - all of which are essential to recovery.

Georgina Wakefield is a mental health service user, carer and author of Schizophrenia: A Mother's Story