ABSTRACT
Psychosocial rehabilitation concepts have gained much attention in the public health arena in recent years, especially in the development of policies and programs for the chronically mentally ill. I was introduced to this approach when, after many years of training and clinical practice based on traditional psychodynamic and object relations theory, I found myself working in a policy and planning capacity for a large urban mental health system. As I have learned more about psychosocial rehabilitation, I have come to realize two things: first, that much of its basic practice wisdom sounds very much like good “old-fashioned” social casework principles; second, that psychosocial rehabilitation is an ideological movement as much as it is a treatment approach.
