Psychiatric Rehabilitation

The contemporary field of psychiatric rehabilitation originated in programs of mental health treatment that began as early as the late 1940s. Many social workers employed in urban community centers, then termed "intermediate care facilities," had been trained in social group work. Any sickness, physical or psychological, leads to reduction in the patient's functional capacity. However, as the recovery takes place, the functional capacity returns to more or less presickness level. Activity may be physical, mental, social, recreational or job oriented. In the case of mentally ill person due to various reasons, these activities are disturbed to a varying extent. Rehabilitation aims at helping the patient to re-establish or regain his interest to do useful activity. Psychiatric rehabilitation grew out of a need to create opportunities for people diagnosed with severe mental illness to live, learn, and work in their own communities.