Clark, a psychologist, and Yeomans, a psychiatrist and organizer of Frazer House, discuss their experience in a treatment setting which uses a social milieu as the primary instrument for effecting change in patients. Under the auspices of the public mental health authority (NEW South Wales) at Sydney, Australia, 150 inpatients and outpatients are engaged with the staff in a corporate effort to manage mental illness of a severity which might otherwise be dealt with by hospitalization.
In the introduction the authors review facts which suggest the view that mental illness involves a cluster of social role elements which are deviant, mismatched with the current environment or otherwise socially offensive. Since roles are seen as growing in response to the expectations of a surrounding milieu, its code of behavior, its rules and sanctions, treatment is seen as requiring the impact of a group context, one