[Promoting citizenship and supporting recovery in severe mental illness].

Background: The problems of people with a (serious) mental illness are rarely limited to mental health care.

Aim: Exploring whether citizenship can be a guiding concept for providing care to this group.

Method: Reflection based on relevant literature and healthcare practices.

Results: Citizenship brings the social backgrounds and consequences of mental health problems into focus, and connects people with and without such problems. In addition to the relations are rights, roles and resources of great importance. A process of subjectivation of citizenship is underway, which offers perspectives for our target group. Human rights guarantee that everyone is a citizen. Conversely, citizenship provides the institutional framework to implement human rights. Recovery and citizenship are each other’s terms.

Conclusion: Promoting citizenship is a joint task for mental health care, social domain and government.