Expectations and the recovery process.

Personal experience is used to illustrate the effects of expectations on a patient's self-esteem and hope. The author, who was diagnosed as having chronic schizophrenia, points to the self-fulfilling nature of expecting a poor outcome. Project Overcome is one attempt to provide patients, families, mental health professionals, and the general public with models of successful patients. Former patients are available to lecture about their past experiences, thereby demonstrating through their actions that there is always hope.