An investigation into community mental health staff experiences

This study attempts to understand how mental health staff deal with the emotional impact of working with people suffering from severe mental illness in the community. Observation of and interviews with staff from mental health teams in the community were carried out, focussing on staff to explore what facilitates them to cope with the emotional demands of this work. Three different types of community teams were studied — clients of the three teams varied in the severity of their illnesses and thus the intensity of their needs. The specific skills needed were found to be different in the three teams