Psychosocial Rehabilitation
Psychiatric rehabilitation, sometimes referred to as “psychosocial rehabilitation,” is a set of strategies and techniques designed to meet the needs of persons with psychiatric disabilities. A true understanding of psychiatric rehabilitation (PsyR) begins with an awareness of and sensitivity to the personal lived experience of serious mental illnesses.
Unlike diseases with predictable symptoms and outcomes, the experience and consequences of mental illness vary considerably from person to person. This is true even for individuals diagnosed with exactly the same condition. Consider two persons, both with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, undifferentiated type. One individual may be experiencing auditory hallucinations (hearing voices), while the other person is plagued by paranoid ideas and experiences but no auditory hallucinations. The history or course of mental illness may also differ from person to person. One person may experience frequent relapses, and another after many years may have had only one short relapse.
