This year’s theme for World Mental Health Day, observed on October 10 every year, recognizes the knowledge carried by those who have lived through mental illness, substance dependence, trauma, displacement and recovery as well as by families who have stood beside them through difficult years. Their experiences reveal something that a diagnosis alone cannot capture: the fear of losing security, the pain of stigma, the loneliness of exclusion, the struggle to find treatment and, ultimately, the courage required to rebuild an ordinary life.
A person is more than a diagnosis. Behind every clinical record is a human being trying to preserve dignity, relationships and a sense of belonging. Meaningful care therefore begins not simply with prescribing treatment, but with listening respectfully and allowing people to participate in decisions about their treatment and rehabilitation.
Pakistan has its own important experience in this regard. The Green Dec Movement, launched in the 1980s, mobilized communities against drug dependence and provided services to hundreds of young people dependent on heroin and other opioids in Peshawar, including local residents and Afghan refugees. Its approach went beyond detoxification. Follow-up, aftercare and relapse prevention recognized that recovery does not end when a substance leaves the body. It continues within families, neighbourhoods and the everyday circumstances to which a person returns.
A five-year follow-up study of this work demonstrated the value of looking at recovery over time rather than treating it as a single clinical event. Since its inception in 1986, Horizon has continued its mental health and humanitarian work among Afghan refugees, internally displaced people and communities affected by conflict, terrorism, earthquakes and floods.
Its activities have included psychiatric treatment, counselling, awareness camps, community rehabilitation and support for children and families affected by the Army Public School tragedy. Through collaboration with Ibadat Hospital and other partners, it has also extended telepsychiatry consultations and follow-up services to communities in Bajaur and Afghanistan, particularly Khost, while training health workers and community volunteers.
Such work raises an important question for Pakistan: are we measuring recovery by the services we deliver or by the lives people are able to rebuild?
The distinction matters. A successful intervention may not always be visible in a clinical statistic. It may appear in a restored relationship between a parent and child, a young person returning to education or work, a family regaining confidence or someone finding the courage to participate again in community life. These are not secondary outcomes. They are often the very meaning of recovery.
Our message for 2026 should therefore be simple but demanding: place lived experience at the centre of service planning, professional training and evaluation, while protecting privacy and respecting each person’s choice about whether and how to share their story.
Mental healthcare becomes more humane when people are not merely treated, but heard. Every person deserves to be heard. Every experience deserves respect. And every community deserves mental healthcare that is accessible, compassionate and capable of helping people recover not merely from illness, but into life.
The writer is a renowned psychiatrist based in Peshawar.
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