Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

When schizophrenia comes marching home

  • Articles
  • Published:
Psychiatric Quarterly Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Deinstitutionalization of the chronically mentally ill has only recently been recognized as a phenomenon which may not be in the best interests of the patients involved. The reasons for this include the lack of adequate community-based resources for domiciliary, treatment, and rehabilitative services, plus the response of society to deviant behavior. However, the most fundamental problem is likely to be the severity of the illnesses with which we are concerned, so that the solution cannot be as simple as the sending “home” of the long-term patients. Prevention of institutionalization is seen as a more feasible goal than its cure. This requires a comprehensive program incorporating, among other things, a recognition of the necessary role of the mental hospital, and the need to improve the quality of care provided therein.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Jones M: Community care for chronic mental patients: The need for a reassessment.Hosp Community Psychiatry 26:94–98, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Gibson RW: The rights of staff in the treatment of the mentally ill.Hosp Community Psychiatry 27:855–860, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Arnhoff FN: Social consequences of policy toward mental illness.Science 188:1277–1281, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Etzioni A: “Deinstitutionalization,” a public policy fashion.Evaluation 3:9–10, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  5. General Accounting Office: Report to the Congress by the Comptroller General of the United States. Returning the mentally disabled to community: government needs to do more. Publication No. HRD-76-152, Washington, USGAO, Jan. 7, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Bachrach LL: Deinstitutionalization: An analytical review and sociological perspective. DHEW Publication No. (ADM) 76–351, Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Kirk SA, Therrien ME: Community mental health myths and the fate of former hospitalized patients.Psychiatry 38:209–217, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Becker A, Schulberg HC: Phasing out state hospitals—a psychiatric dilemma.New Engl J Med 294:255–261, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Zusman J, Lamb HR: In defense of community mental health.Am J Psychiatry 134:887–890, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Schmidt LJ, Reinhardt AM, Kane RL, Olsen DM: The mentally ill in nursing homes: New back wards in the community.Arch Gen Psychiatry 34:687–691, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Hynes CJ: Private proprietary homes for adults: An interim report. New York City, State of New, York Special Prosecutor for Nursing Homes, Health, and Social Services, Mar. 31, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Anderson GM: Ex-mental patients and the new snake pits.America 135:90–94, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Murphy HBM, Engelsmann F, Tcheng-Laroche F: The influence of foster home care on psychiatric patients.Arch Gen Psychiatry 33:179–183, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Sylph JA, Kedward HB: Alternatives to the mental hospital.Arch Gen Psychiatry 34:909–912, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Woolley FR, Kane RL: Community aftercare of patients discharged from Utah State Hospital: A follow-up study.Hosp Community Psychiatry 28:114–118, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Bennett FH: Using hospital staff to provide aftercare for discharged patients.Hosp Community Psychiatry 28:138, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Mental Health Association of Westchester County, Inc: Statement on prevention and treatment of mental illness, community residences, and mental illness in youth and children, White Plains, N.Y. Mar. 14, 1977.

  18. Wilder JF, Karasu TB: Games institutions play: An exclusionary plot.Hosp Community Psychiatry 28:459–460, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Lebensohn ZM: Pilgrim's progress, or the tortuous road to mental health.Compr Psychiatry 16:415–426, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Rachlin S, Grossman S, Frankel J: Patients without communities. Presented at the 130th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, Toronto, Ont., May 2–6, 1977.Hosp Community Psychiatry. In press.

  21. McAtee OB, Zirkle GA: In defense of the state hospital.Hosp Community Psychiatry 27:585–586, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Rosen IM: In further defense of the state hospital: Its rehabilitative function.Hosp Community Psychiatry 27:820–821, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Dingman PR: The alternative care is not there. In Ahmed PI, Plog SC (eds):State Mental Hospitals: What Happens When They Close. New York, Plenum 1976, pp 45–61.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Barton R: Abandoning the mentally ill.Aust NZ J Psychiatry 9:215–219, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Doll W: Family coping with the mentally ill: An unanticipated problem of deinstitutionalization.Hosp Community Psychiatry 27:183–185, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Rachlin S, Pam A, Milton J: Civil liberties versus involuntary hospitalization.Am J Psychiatry 132:189–192, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Clausen JA, Huffine CL: Sociocultural and social-psychological factors affecting social responses to mental disorder.J Health Soc Behav 16:405–420, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Fracchia J, Sheppard C, Canale D, Cambria E, Ruest E, Merlis S: Public perception of ex-mental patients.Am J Public Health 66:74–76, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Cocozza JJ, Steadman HJ: Community fear of the mentally ill: An unsolved obstacle for the community mental health movement. Presented at the Conference on Community and Policy Research, State University of New York at Albany, Apr. 30, 1976.

  30. Petrich J: Rate of psychiatric morbidity in a metropolitan county jail population.Am J Psychiatry 133:1439–1444, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Murdock J: We are now jailing the ill, writes this county official. New Rochelle (NY)Standard Star, Feb. 8, 1977, p. A-11.

  32. Swank GE, Winer D: Occurrence of psychiatric disorder in a county jail population.Am J Psychiatry 133:1331–1333, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Robitscher J: Moving patients out of hospitals—in whose interest. In Ahmed PI, Plog SC (eds):State Mental Hospitals: What Happens When They Close. New York, Plenum, 1976, pp 141–175.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Dorman LB: Community mental health services in Alabama after Wyatt.Hosp Community Psychiatry 28:364–366, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Rappeport JR: Rights. Presented at the 28th Institute on Hospital and Community Psychiatry, Atlanta, Ga., Sept. 20–23, 1976.

  36. Stone AA: Overview: The right to treatment—comments on the law and its impact.Am J Psychiatry 132:1125–1134, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  37. O'Connor v Donaldson, 422 US 563 (1975).

  38. Sadoff RL: Risks of state and private hospital psychiatrists in involuntary hospitalization in re: Right to treatment.Bull Amer Acad Psychiatry Law 3:32–37, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Kopolow LE: A review of major implications of the O'Connor v Donaldson decision.Am J Psychiatry 133:379–383, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Treffert DA: The practical limits of patients' rights.Psychiatr Ann 5:158–161, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Chodoff P: The case for involuntary hospitalization of the mentally ill.Am J Psychiatry 133:496–501, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  42. Slovenko R, Luby ED: On the emancipation of mental patients.J Psychiatry Law 3:191–213, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  43. Shagass C: The medical model in psychiatry.Compr Psychiatry 16:405–413, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  44. Robbins E, Stern M, Robbins L, Margolin L: Unwelcome patients: Where can they find asylum?Hosp Community Psychiatry 29:44–46, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  45. Serban G: Functioning ability in schizophrenic and “normal” subjects: Short-term prediction for rehospitalization of schizophrenics.Compr Psychiatry 16:447–456, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Smith WG, Hart DW: Community mental health: A noble failure?Hosp Community Psychiatry 26:581–583, 1975.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Lamb HR, Goertzel V: The long-term patient in the era of community treatment.Arch Gen Psychiatry 34:679–682, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  48. Rachlin S: The case against closing of state hospitals. In Ahmed PI, Plog SC (eds):State Mental Hospitals: What Happens When They Close. New York, Plenum, 1976, pp 31–44.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, Nassau County Medical Center, USA

    Stephen Rachlin M.D. (Assistant Chairman for Clinical Services)

Authors
  1. Stephen Rachlin M.D.
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Rachlin, S. When schizophrenia comes marching home. Psych Quart 50, 202–210 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01064710

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01064710

Keywords

Search

Navigation