Problems in teamwork between a social service psychiatric unit and a psychiatric hospital

Abstract

The report focuses on teamwork in social psychiatry rather than in a hospital‐based institution staffed with psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers. Work in social psychiatry must be based on a social medicine model of sickness rather than on the classic “mechanical failure” model. More is done in social psychiatry to evaluate a patient's life‐ situation than a patient's symptoms, since successful treatment often requires an understanding of the individual's total social situation. If psychiatric treatment is to produce better results in the future, it will be necessary to work in terms of district psychiatry with attention to community‐oriented services. Problems of confidentiality must be considered carefully. Institutions of social psychiatry should be established which can promote interdisciplinary teamwork, function as training departments and bridge the gap between psychiatric hospitals and the social services. Social psychiatry should not become an independent speciality to which “social cases” are referred from psychiatric wards. On the contrary, social psychiatry should be integrated as a natural and important part of a psychiatrist's training and function.