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The Assertive Community Treatment Team as a Complex Dynamic System of Care

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Abstract

This paper presents a dynamic systems view of assertive community treatment (ACT), a recognized evidence-based treatment for adults with severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI). It is argued that because an ACT team operates as a complex adaptive system (CAS), it engages in the organizational processes of “sensemaking” and self-organization, which help to bring order to the actions of team members and sustainability of the intervention itself. Consequently, successful implementation of ACT requires that management technologies such as meaning-creation and design are used in conjunction with traditional “command and control” technologies of policies, procedures, processes, and structures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, Box 3438, Durham, NC, 27710

    Charlene A. Allred

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, Durham

    Barbara J. Burns

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham

    Susan D. Phillips

Authors
  1. Charlene A. Allred
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  2. Barbara J. Burns
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  3. Susan D. Phillips
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Correspondence to Charlene A. Allred.

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Allred, C.A., Burns, B.J. & Phillips, S.D. The Assertive Community Treatment Team as a Complex Dynamic System of Care. Adm Policy Ment Health 32, 211–220 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-004-0841-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-004-0841-6

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