Community Life for the Mentally Ill presents a social innovative
experiment aimed at providing new and more participating social
positions in American society for mental patients. It presents the
events that occurred when a courageous group of former chronic
mental patients abruptly left a hospital and established their own
autonomous sub-society in a large, metropolitan area.
In order to complete this experiment, the patients created a
small society in the community where discharged patients could live
and work. Others evaluated the effects of the newly created society
upon the behavior and perceptions of its members, which is also
presented here. Both the descriptive and comparative aspects of
this study are presented as they occurred in real life. The book is
concerned with the medical, economic, sociological, and
psychological facets of these former patients' daily lives. The
effects of this small society upon the neighborhood and city in
which it was located, as well as its effects upon professional
persons, are richly explored.
Clearly defining a radical departure from standard methods for
treating the mentally ill, the authors conclude that such an
autonomous society can thrive in the appropriate setting; the
ex-patient's chances of employment are increased and the chance of
recidivism are reduced; the member's self-esteem is enhanced;
treatment costs are greatly reduced; the community adjustment of
all members is increased, especially among those who have been
hospitalized for a long period. With new guidelines for identifying
danger zones in urban settings, this becomes a critical work.
George W. Fairweather was professor of psychology at Michigan
State University and is author of Methods for Experimental Social
Innovation and Social Psychology in Treating Mental Illness. David
H. Sanders was professor of psychology and psychiatry at Michigan
State University. He has also been a research associate at Stanford
University. David L. Cressler and Hugo Maynard were professors of
psychology at Portland State University. They have also been
research associates at Stanford University.
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