Deborah Pitts, MBA, OTR/L, CPRP

I have profound respect for those who cope with mental illness and the devastatingly complicated issues that touch all areas of life. With courage, they battle not only the symptoms of mental illness, but also the labels and perceptions that society imposes on them. Helping them build their lives through engagement in occupations in non-institutional apartments, homes, and employment settings brings great reward to our clinical faculty and our student interns.
After a client's first episode and hospitalization, our opportunity is to create space and places to support their functioning through advocacy. We encourage the building of apartments to accommodate this population, organize apartments to work for our clients, and help them modify and change routines to do the things they want to do. We advocate for services and programs and assist employers to change the way they give instructions and organize teams. We help our clients move beyond the nature of their illness and make a life for themselves by working, living independently, socializing and taking up leisure time activities.
Whether or not USC occupational therapy students ultimately work with those with mental illness, they gain appreciation for the lived experience of recovery by joining us in the practice. They help build the clients' all-important sense of self by fully persuading them that their lives aren't over and working through partnerships with families, apartment mangers, employers, and coworkers.
People in recovery tell us often that those who made the biggest difference for them were the people who gave them hope. It is not surprising that a major function of our work is the belief that despite the labels our clients must live with, their lives can be rich and full.

Biography
Deborah Pitts is an expert in the philosophy and practice of psychiatric rehabilitation within community mental health settings. She earned her undergraduate degree in OT at San Jose State. To build her credentials to influence the expansion of community support services for persons labeled with psychiatric disabilities, she earned her MBA at Pepperdine University. She serves as a behavioral health surveyor for CARF, The Rehabilitation Accreditation Commission, and evaluates programs for community mental health settings. She weaves her expertise in the area of schizophrenia, psychosocial rehabilitation and community support programs into her interest in how occupation influences the "lived experience" of recovery for persons labeled with psychiatric disabilities. She is a member of the International Association of Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services (IAPSRS). She currently consults with Homes for Life Foundation, a Los Angeles County organization that provides supported housing for persons labeled with psychiatric disabilities living in the community, with Telecare Corporation, which provides assertive community treatment and other mental health services, and Integrity House, a psychosocial rehabilitation clubhouse. She has co-written chapters for community psychiatry and psychiatric rehabilitation textbooks.