GROUP DECISION-MAKING AND SELF-MANAGEMENT IN THE TREATMENT OF PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS.

This article presents information on the treatment of psychiatric patients. Psychiatric patients, receive from society considerable feedback that communicates a lack of trust and respect for their abilities to manage their own lives. First, they are ruled incompetent to function outside of an institution, and then they are remanded to a psychiatric facility for treatment and become subject to total institutional control. If the process of institutionalization contributes to lowered levels of self-concept, self esteem and behavioral deterioration in hospitalized psychiatric patients, it would follow that patients will require therapeutic experiences that will enhance their self concepts prior to discharge from the hospital.