Chronic psychoses and rehabilitation: an ecological perspective

Traditional explanatory models, based on core psychological deficits, vulnerability-stress models or distinctions between negative and positive symptoms, may not be sufficient to understand the phenomenon of chronicity. This linear thinking, looking for monocausal explanations, should be replaced by exploring multicausal and circular processes over time, including the individual ecological context of a given patient. Thus, chronicity appears to result much more from endless loops and irreversible bifurcations in its dynamics over time than to be a stable state. Furthermore, the current views on psychopathology and prognosis need to be fundamentally reexamined in the light of this new way of thinking. For understanding and treatment of chronic psychoses, this ecological perspective implies programs which do not focus only on the patient, but look for 'ecological niches' and interventions favoring synergetics and self-organization within the social networks and at the worksite of a given patient. A recently implemented five-step program for vocational rehabilitation and the corresponding research plan will be presented and discussed.