Work with Psychotic Patients in a Rehabilitation Unit: A Short Term Staff Support Group with a Nursing Team

Abstract

The author documents difficulties that arose in the work of a team working in a residential setting providing 24 hour care for patients with repeated or long-term admissions, and the different, inter-related and mutually dependent aspects of this work. Issues that emerged included the difficult nature of work with this patient group, collaborative work in the team, management issues and models of care, i.e. active rehabilitation ideology. Staff encountered problems which were not unique to this team, and which have wider implications for other staff working in similar roles and contexts with a similar patient group.