Psychiatric rehabilitation of schizophrenia: editor's introduction

Well-planned and conceptualized rehabilitation of psychiatric patients who demonstrate persisting impairments, disabilities, and handicaps begins with assessment of symptoms and psychosocial functioning. Rehabilitation interventions--aimed at building skills and providing supportive and prosthetic environments--are linked to initial and ongoing assessment. The refractoriness of large numbers of psychiatric patients to conventional and customary forms of therapy will fuel the development of psychiatric rehabilitation that is efficacious and empirically based.