The word 'recovery' in psychiatric practice means different things to different people. Many clinicians would consider recovery in Bipolar Disorder to mean the person is stable (euthymic), mostly free of symptoms, and functioning at or close to their premorbid role in life (e.g. student, work, etc). In the past 15 years, large drug development programs or longer term follow up descriptive studies for persons with Bipolar Disorder have reported outcomes such as response, remission, symptomatic recovery, or functional recovery; depending on whether these were relatively short term (weeks to months) studies or recurrence prevention (months to years) studies. This presentation will review these published and reported outcomes and position them against the newer recommendations suggested by experts and also importantly position them against what patients and families may see as more desired outcomes.