Caring for the Mentally Ill in the Community

First published in 1981, Caring for the Mentally Ill in the Community is a manual of treatment practice for those working with psychiatric patients in the community—psychiatric nurses, social workers, health visitors, district nurses, and general practitioners.

The book seeks to remove psychiatric disorder from its ‘illness’ orientation and examines the effects and process of mental disorder upon the individual and the family. The problems of associating all mental disorder with a medical model are touched upon and the importance of a concept of ‘self-help’ and individual responsibility for care is discussed. A systematic method of how to deal with mental disorder moves through assessment, treatment, and evaluation, giving form and substance to the routes which can be chosen when trying to effect change. The chapter on assessment makes the plea for an individualistic approach and the limitations of some of the more traditional methods are exposed, while the chapters concerning treatment and evaluation use a case study approach to demonstrate the described techniques in action.