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Community Care: An Analysis of Assumptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

David Hawks
David Hawks*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Whitchurch Hospital, Cardiff, CF4 7XB
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Summary

The implementation of a policy of ‘community care’ is seen to involve a number of assumptions, some of which are rarely examined. These can be roughly categorized as involving the nature of mental illness, the nature of community, the course and treatment of mental illness, the proper scope of psychiatry, the burden on the community and the efficacy of social work. Data bearing on these assumptions are reviewed, and the conclusion is offered that they are far from being uncontentious.

It is suggested that the movement toward community care has many of the attributes of a moral enterprise which, unless substantiated by benefits to the patient or his family, may be the latest diversion of the psychiatric conscience from the care and treatment of the chronic mentally ill.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 127 , Issue 3 , September 1975 , pp. 276 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1975 

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