From TV Tropes "Healing Magic Is the Hardest" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HealingMagicIsTheHardest):

In The Dresden Files healing magic seems to be nonexistent, at least for humans (Listens-To-Winds does have some capability in this matter, but he's a Senior Council Member and regularly goes back to medical school). Magic can be used to staunch a wound or keep someone alert, but not in any more direct fashion. Very powerful beings like the Faerie Queens can do more, including fixing a broken spine and

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bringing Harry back from the brink of death, with the help of a powerful Genius Loci

. According to the RPG, Summer Magic can be used to heal people (at least, better than most people) as the magic grants some kind of instinctive knowledge of physiology. Miss Gard's Runic Magic and certain forms of Necromancy can also stave off death.

So if you have fictional support in your game for healing magic (Necromancy or Necromancy-adjacent magic, Runic Magic, Summer Magic, perhaps an appropriate Genius Loci), then there are many ways within the rules to go about it, depending on how much of a challenge the GM opts to make it.

Since almost no one is going to resist healing it should be easy to apply to others.

Whether or not someone can "surrender" to a beneficial transformative spell has been under some discussion. At the end of the day, healing mortal tissue is supposed to be very hard to do for mortals, so the shifts are almost irrelevant, as is the will of the patient. The spellcaster basically has to be an accomplished doctor, or tap into primal genitive forces. Humans don't know how to regenerate any quicker than their bodies self-heal, so their imagination is irrelevant: there's little they can "will" into happening to make it go faster.

Now, I imagine part of the issue is anyone coming from a D&D background is used to "black box" magic: you do a thing, you make some motions, you sacrifice some stuff, and something cool happens, but you don't know or care why. Dresden Files isn't D&D, and healing isn't a casual part of the fiction. Part of the setting flavor is that the spellcaster kinda needs to understand the physics of what she is doing in order to will the change into happening, and there is some passing nod to conservation of force/matter/energy.

If your GM allows it, of course, it is somewhat moot *how* it happens, as players can always find the shifts somewhere. If the GM doesn't agree that the healing you want is appropriate for the spellcaster's current abilities, then it can't be done without tapping some darker powers and incurring their debt.

And if you're not playing Dresden Files, but just using the rules for some other fantasy setting, then the Dresden setting stuff is moot, and your ideas are certainly a good start!

Thank you, I've got the direction of thoughts. Does anyone have another point of view, more strictly attained to the game mechanics?

I recall DFRPG does insist on a Recovery roll in order to get the recovery process going, which I think is important because it underscores the stressful nature of the DF fiction, and the  importance of taking an actual break from the action. I was surprised initially to find, for instance, that BUlldogs! did *not* have that requirement. DF had been my first real Fate experience.

Just because none of the PC's immediate group have the right skills to justify recovery doesn't mean nobody out there has them. I liked the suggestion of a priest being able to tend to someone with mental issues. Maybe there's a WCV/psychotherapist who is trying to stay on the good path (like in one of my DFRPG games). This could be an opportunity to expand the cast list for the game, or at least a side adventure for the player.

There are three levels for a Social challenge:

• Overcome - roll to overcome the Social difficulty of a low-level threat, usually to bypass a minor challenge or to reward creativity, but you still want some chance of failure and consequence. Talking your way past a mook, bluffing an office worker, or getting a quick tip from a reluctant street informant.
• Contest - two characters roll competing social skills because there's a greater chance of failure and further complication, but the interaction doesn't merit a whole scene. Maybe use this to wheedle information out of competent/skilled but not fanatically motivated opposition. Good option for a social event during which the PCs want to chase down numerous bits of information or secure temporary alliances. Still important, but not enough to deal Stress or Consequences to anyone.
• Conflict - this is where Stress gets involved: a high-stakes negotiation, interrogation, argument or shouting match. Someone is getting what they want in this scene, and it is very important. Someone is getting Taken Out or Conceding. People might lose face, friends, allies, emotional control, etc. Someone may even get Consequences.

In addition to the regular social challenge, you can have a "political/cultural/societal" Conflict in which the players are operating on a greater scale to create or mitigate social pressures, public policy, etc. Smear campaigns, backroom alliances, etc. can all work to someone's advantage. Although there aren't a lot of rules about expanding the scope of social challenges this way, I think it is at least mentioned that Social Stress/Consequences can take longer to go away depending on the scale (Fate Fractal/Bronze Rule) of the conflict. So, suffering Social consequences at a party is one thing, but suffering Social consequences at a big society ball with media coverage and a lot of movers/shakers is quite another. This is also something one would use for political campaigns. But it is not well-codified, so you are free to handle it however you think best.

In my experience, people just ignore those rules completely.

Side note: in my Bulldogs! game, I was ignoring a similar set of workspace/crafting rules. Thankfully, the players were alright with me retroactively asserting that subsystem. And luckily they managed to legitimately acquire a number of quality +6 workspaces.

Your World, p 142:

Academic research requires a library (page 140), while research through experimentation requires a laboratory. The quality of these workspaces determines the hardest possible question you can answer within them (so a question of Good difficulty requires a Good library or better). If you attempt to answer a question in a library that’s not equipped to answer it, the GM is encouraged to be up-front about its shortcomings.

The rating on your laboratory/library/etc. limits the difficulty of questions you can ask without leaving the laboratory. Anything above that rating means that you need to find answers elsewhere.

As for Rituals/Thaumaturgy, I don't know that it has any impact. Your Lore skill already determines what you can do without preparation.

Has anyone else used laboratories in their games to restrict/complement Thaumaturgy?

Stared out with Champions and AD&D 2e. Some GURPS.
Moved into D&D 3.5, investing heavily. Got into LARPing around that time. Some bad experiences with Call of Cthulhu.
Played a lot of Mutants and Masterminds.
Started a Dresden Files RPG, which inspired me to get into Fate and other indie games. Invested in the Fate Core KickStarter.
Our LARP troupe eventually published a book called LARPS about how we run and build characters for our games.
Finished a 3+ year game of RuneQuest.
Have been playing other games here and there (Apocalypse World, Fiasco, Monsterhearts, tremulus, Trail of Cthulhu, and more).

Currently running Bulldogs, playing Champions, and about to try Mythender. I currently have a list of about 70 indie games I want to try.

Done and done!