ABSTRACT
The clubhouse as a psycho-social model for community psychiatric rehabilitation has spread around the world. A clubhouse program is designed as an intentionally created community for adults with psychiatric disabilities. Hsin-Ye and Easy House were selected for comparison because they are family member groups and represent rather different stances toward clubhouse and psychiatry. This chapter provides a historical account of how the clubhouse has come to be understood in Taiwan and the conditions that make this understanding possible. A brief history of the mental health system in Taiwan will illustrate how family members of persons with mental illness carry most of the care burden and are given the least status within the mental health system. The medicalization of mental illness in Taiwan came relatively late compared to Western countries. The state-led family member groups in Taiwan have had a great impact on the development of an independent family member self-help movement.
