Abstract
Contemporary Soviet psychiatric thinking holds that the mentally ill or emotionally disturbed should be cared for in the community; that they should be treated and supported by the staff of an outpatient medical clinic, and that they should be kept usefully working in a group, even though in a reduced capacity. The Soviet design is interesting, progressive and challenging; it seems to be well adapted to provide for the mental health needs of an industrialized and urbanized population, and deserves a careful, sympathetic, and critical assessment by Western specialists concerned with organizing psychiatric services outside the mental hospital and in community settings.
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Dr. Aronson was formerly with the Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
This work was financed, in part, by Research Grants CH00002 and MH07791, National Institute of Health, Public Health Service, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. In connection with some general work on the sociological and cultural contexts of Soviet psychiatry and the establishment of theInternational Journal of Psychiatry (Jason Aronson, M.D., editor), the authors have visited the Soviet Union separately on several occasions and together twice. This paper is based on the latter two visits, which took place early in 1963 and 1964.
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Field, M.G., Aronson, J. Soviet community mental health services and work therapy: A report of two visits. Community Ment Health J 1, 81–90 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01435972
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01435972