Abstract
In the year 2000, a law was passed in Israel, known as the Law for Community Rehabilitation of the Mentally Disabled. The Community Rehabilitation Law was intended to provide a “package of services” that will allow people who suffer from mental illness and were hospitalized, to return to their community. This research, by using qualitative research methods, tried to understand and explore the meaning of rehabilitation and return to the community under the new legislative setting from the viewpoint and experiences of the participants themselves. Fifteen schizophrenic patients were interviewed in this research. All the participants were institutionalized in the past and released for rehabilitation in the community under Israel’s new act. The data were collected after all interviews were recorded and analyzed. The qualitative data analysis exposed a continuous process of four conceptual categories: (1) Viewing institutionalization as transformation from the “normal” to the “abnormal”; (2) Viewing institutionalization as a process moving from the “abnormal” back to the “normal”; (3) Viewing the return to the community as “re-birth”; and finally, (4) Viewing community-based rehabilitation as reality, which enables normality alongside mental illness. This research presents a theoretical model that provides the meanings and experiences of the participants as a continuity, in which the whole process of moving from the community to the institution and back to the community is represented as one continuous process integrated in each other. Within this continuing process, the community-based rehabilitation legislation serves as a key component, well-integrated within the whole continuum that allows people with mental illness to return to “normality” within the community.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anthony, W. A. (1993). Recovery from mental illness: The guiding vision of the mental health service system in the 1990s. Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, 16(4), 11–23.
Aviram, U. (1991). Social policy and services for the mentally ill in Israel: Progress or freezing? Social Security, 37, 71–99. (Hebrew).
Aviram, U. (2001). Social integration of chronically mentally ill patients: Old problem in a new context. Social Security, 61, 42–61. (Hebrew).
Aviram, U., Admon, A., Ajzenstadt, M., & Kanter, A. (2000). Directions of change and conservation in the mental health legislation in Israel: The new act on treating the mentally ill. Mishpatim, 31, 145–191. (Hebrew).
Bachrach, L. (1994). Deinstitutionalization: What does it really mean. In R. J. Ancill, S. Holliday, & J. Higenbottam (Eds.), Schizophrenia exploring the spectrum of psychosis (pp. 21–33). New York: Wiley.
Bhugra, D. (2005). The global prevalence of schizophrenia. PLoS Medicine, 2(5), 372–373.
Brekke, J. S., & Long, J. D. (2000). Community-based psychosocial rehabilitation and prospective change in functional, clinical, and subjective experience variables in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 26(3), 667–680.
Creswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design among five: Choosing traditions. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Curson, D. A., Patel, M., Liddle, P. F., & Barnes, T. R. E. (1988). Psychiatric morbidity of a long stay hospital population with chronic schizophrenia and implications for future community care. British Medical Journal, 297, 819–822.
Cutting, J., & Dunne, F. (1989). Subjective experience of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 15, 217–231.
Davidson, L., & Strauss, J. S. (1992). Sense of self in recovery from severe mental illness. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 65, 131–145.
Dorner, D. (2002). The rights of people with disabilities. Issues in Education & Rehabilitation, 17(2), 73–75. (Hebrew).
Elizur, A. (1998). Institutionalization and de-institutionalization: The organization of regional mental health services. Society & Welfare, 18, 23–31. (Hebrew).
Feldman, I., & Bar-On, D. (2001). Rehabilitation-basket for mentally disabled persons and their family members. Social Security, 61, 80–107. (Hebrew).
Finzi, R., & Tyano, S. (2002). The patients’ rights act and psychiatry. Harefua, 141(1), 100–102. (Hebrew).
Haver, A., Shani, M., Kotler, M., Fast, D., Elizur, A., & Baruch, I. (2005). The mental health reform: Where from? Where to? Harefua, 144(5), 327–331. (Hebrew).
Kaplan, Z., Kotler, M., & Witztum, A. (2001). Mental health services in Israel: Changes and directions. Harefua, 140(5), 440–445. (Hebrew).
Kuzel, A. (1999). Sampling in qualitative inquiry. In W. L. Miller & B. F. Crabtree (Eds.), Doing qualitative research (pp. 33–47). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Lachman, M., & Roe, D. (2003). The development of knowledge of recovery from schizophrenia and other long-term mental illness. Sichot, 18(1), 38–47. (Hebrew).
Laing, R. D. (1960). The divided self. London: Tavistock.
Levi, A. (2003). New Israeli psychiatric legislation. In A. Levi, A. Carmi, & D. Nachshon (Eds.), Psychiatry law (pp. 21–40). Tel Aviv: Yozmot.
Liberman, R. P. (Ed.). (1988). Psychiatric rehabilitation of chronic mental patients. USA: American Psychiatric Press.
Little, M. I. (2005). Psychotic anxieties and containment. Tel Aviv: Tolaat Spharim. (Hebrew).
MacCarthy, B., & Liddle, P. (1994). The assessment of subjective experience and insight. In T. R. E. Barnes & H. E. Nelson (Eds.), The assessment of psychosis (pp. 105–124). London: Champan and Hall.
Miller, W. L., & Crabtree, B. F. (1999). Depth interviewing. In W. L. Miller & B. F. Crabtree (Eds.), Doing qualitative research (pp. 89–109). Thousand Oak: Sage.
Ministry of Health. (2009). Mental health in Israel: Statistical report 2008. Jerusalem: Ministry of Health.
Netanyahu Report. (2001). The governmental commission on the function and effectiveness of Israel’s health system. Jerusalem: Government Press.
Noordsy, D., Torrey, W., Mueser, K., Mead, S., O’keefe, C., & Fox, L. (2002). Recovery from severe mental illness: An interpersonal and functional outcome definition. International Review of Psychiatry, 14, 318–326.
Ofir, A., & Orenstein, D. (2001). The equal rights for people with disabilities act: Emancipation at the end of the 20th Century. In M. Goldberg (Ed.), The Menachem Goldberg Book (pp. 23–31). Tel-Aviv: Sadan.
Patton, M. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. Newbury Park: Sage.
Phillips, E. S., Barrio, C., & Brekke, J. S. (2001). The impact of ethnicity on prospective functional outcomes from community-based psychosocial rehabilitation for persons with schizophrenia. Journal of Community Psychology, 29(6), 657–673.
Saha, S., Chant, D., Welham, J., & McGrath, J. (2005). A systematic review of the prevalence of schizophrenia. PLoS Medicine, 2(5), 413–433.
Shkedi, A. (2003). Words of meaning. Tel-Aviv: Ramot. (Hebrew).
Spinelli, E. (1996). The existential-phenomenological paradigm. In R. Woolfe & W. Dryden (Eds.), Handbook of counseling psychology (pp. 180–201). London: Sage.
Strauss, J. S. (1989). Subjective experiences of schizophrenia: Toward a new dynamic Psychiatry-2. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 15(2), 179–187.
Tzaban, I. (1992). The legislative development of the rights of the mentally ill. Medicine and Law, 6, 25–28. (Hebrew).
Warner, R. (1994). Recovery from schizophrenia psychiatry and political economy. London: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mazor, U., Doron, I. The Meaning of Community Rehabilitation for Schizophrenia Patients in Israel. Community Ment Health J 47, 351–360 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-010-9324-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-010-9324-2