Inpatient rehabilitation support groups: a literature review

Inpatient Rehabilitation Support Group

The work of Mowbray, et al. (2005) entitled: "Supported Education for Adults with Psychiatric Disabilities: An Innovation for Social Work and Psychosocial Rehabilitation Practice" states that "dual policies of deinstitutionalization and community-based mental health services have been a mainstay of the U.S. mental health system over the past 40 years. However, these policies have been imperfectly implemented." Patients in the 1960s were treated in psychiatric hospitals and received "only minimal community-based treatment in the form of medications or outpatient psychotherapy. It soon became apparent that this situation produced a 'revolving door' phenomenon wherein people with serious mental illness (SMI) cycled in and out of inpatient psychiatric care." (Mowbray, et al., 2005)

Mowbray et al. states that assisting individuals with disabilities of a psychiatric nature in optimizing functioning makes a requirement of methods of rehabilitation that are likened to those utilized for individuals with physical disabilities in which "rehabilitation focuses on the reduction of the disability and the promotion of more effective adaptation in the individual's environment - so as individuals can acquire skills and knowledge to minimize their disability, and environmental supports to help them carry out their rehabilitation goals." (Mowbray, et al., 2005) It is related that it was the acknowledgement of the need for rehabilitation services and support systems as critical components to mental health treatment that resulted in the Community Support Program in the decade of the 1970s and which resulted in the Community Support Program launching "several innovative models for psychosocial rehabilitation (PSR)..." (Mowbray, 2005) Stated as key in the PSR program effectiveness is the design which is a "partnership between the person with a disability and the treating professional."