The Chronic Psychiatric Patient in the Community

The purpose of this book is to present an integrated approach to the treatment of the chronic psychiatric patient living in the com­ munity. This requires that topics as diverse as pharmacokinetics, psychotherapy and community organization be appropriately coor­ dinated. Such an approach is partly complicated by the wide range of differences among patients, in terms of social skills, intellectual capacity and psychiatric diagnosis. In addition, unclear, insular or overlapping roles of various mental health disciplines further con­ found integrated treatment efforts. Given such complexity, any single clinician's point of view is sub­ ject to the distortion inherent in specialization. Too often a volume in the field of mental health focuses either on only one aspect or presents only one clinician's unique perspective of a task that is, in fact, multifaceted. We have tried to avoid this pitfall by having representatives from many of the concerned professions present a variety of treatment approaches and associated issues in one text. Further, the editors have attempted to illuminate the relevant clinical and/or administrative interrelationship between the subjects of each section through a succinct introductory commentary. The book is divided into five sections. The first section represents an attempt to address some of the interactive sociological, psycho­ logical and pharmacological background issues common to all at­ tempts at treatment of this population.