Abstract:

Mental illnesses are one or more basic life activities and cause serious functional disorders. When mental disorders are not treated adequately, they cause more functional and labor loss and problems in social environment. Treatment of mental illnesses can be made by evaluating the biological, psychological and social dimensions of the patients with a biopsychological approach and by providing their well-being. Psychiatric social work field grows in importance lately in terms of patients’ holistic examination and traetment in biopsychosocial approach. As it is seen in the definition of “health”, being healthy requires a total biological, psychologic and social wellness state. However, it is one of the basic indicators of the individuals’ psychologic and social well being has rather been ignored in this field as psychiatric field is limited to medical field in Turkey, in terms of both clinical and community based services. In this regard, this study adresses increasingly important social work field in psychiatric field and roles and duties of social workers in that field. The roles and responsibilities of social workers have been examined in the three major health care practices in the field of mental health, in terms of preventive mental health services, therapeutic mental health services and rehabilitative mental health services.

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