Daily life experience of people with chronic mental disabilities in Hamilton, Ontario.

A study of the daily life experiences of people with chronic mental disabilities who were associated with three mental health services in Hamilton, Ontario, yielded both quantifiable data and narrative accounts of life in the community. In this article, the narrative accounts are reported and interpreted under the proposition that insider perspectives reveal useful insights for all involved in community mental health. The article highlights the fact that limited social opportunities and material poverty combine to give mentally disabled people the distinctive experience of having relatively unconstrained time but a highly constrained set of places in the city available to them.