Community care: an analysis of assumptions.

The implementation of a policy of "community care' is seen to involve a number of assumptions, some of which are rarely examined. These can be roughly categorized as involving the nature of mental illness, the nature of community, the course and treatment of mental illness, the proper scope of psychiatry, the burden on the community and the efficacy of social work. Data bearing on these assumptions are reviewed, and the conclusion is offered that they are far from being uncontentious. It is suggested that the movement toward community care has many of the attributes of a moral enterprise which, unless substantiated by benefits to the patient or his family, may be the latest diversion of the psychiatric conscience from the care and treatment of the chronic mentally ill.