Mark Ragins

Mark Ragins is an American psychiatrist in the recovery movement in mental health care.^[1][2][3][4]

Biography

Ragins is a founding member of the Village ISA, where his work with people with severe mental illness made him a leading voices in recovery-based treatment theory. He is an international lecturer and a trainer for psychiatric residents through the University of Southern California's psychiatry residency.^[5]

Ragins is the author of numerous writings on recovery-based mental health care and reforming mental health systems to provide recovery-based care.^[6] In 2010, he published book, Road to Recovery.^[6] Ragins appears as a character in the book The Soloist by Steve Lopez, which was released in a movie version in 2009.^[7] In 2021, he published the book, Journeys Beyond the Frontier: A Rebellious Guide to Psychosis and Other Extraordinary Experiences.^[8][9]

His work advises that psychiatric drugs are overprescribed,^[10] that community engagement is a critical part of recovery from mental illness,^[11][12] and that psychosis results from changes in how a person experiences reality, relationships, and self-identity.^[13] He uses a humanistic and rehabilitative approach to psychiatry.^[14][15]

Ragins was the co-recipient of the American Psychiatric Association’s 1995 van Ameringen Award for his outstanding contribution to the field of psychiatric rehabilitation and was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association in 2006 for his continuing work in recovery-based mental health care. He received the US Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association's John Beard Lifetime achievement award in 2011.^[3]