‘Recovery’ is a term used in many contexts, and especially within medicine, care, and psychiatry. People can recover from a number of bad states, e.g., heartache, hunger, poverty, and indebtedness. However, given the context of this article, social psychiatry, the term appears to be about ‘getting better’, or even ‘being healed’ from a disease, disorder, illness, or similar condition. Even so, in the medical and psychiatric literature the term is used in a number of different ways, and a variety of end goals for recovery are suggested, some of which convey very different approaches to, or methods for, treating (helping, supporting, facilitating) individuals, users, clients, or patients, in order for them to recover. That the term comes with many meanings becomes even more clear when one approaches the field of social psychiatry, where the ‘recovery movement’ in psychiatry makes both a theoretical and ethical/political point in viewing recovery as a very special, and ‘valuable’, process or phenomenon. The aim of this paper, then, is to formulate a definition of the concept that might be particularly useful in the context of social psychiatry. First, the basic concept ‘recovery’ will be defined, abstractly, and second, it will be decided what, exactly, is the quality (or qualities) that the individual should regain. Several ideas about what the valued dimension should consist of will be discussed, e.g., symptom reduction, mental functioning, health, subjective well-being, happiness, quality of life, empowerment, and a meaningful life.