Discussion: What Does Rehabilitation Accomplish?

It is often assumed that rehabilitation is limited to helping schizophrenic patients compensate for deficits that are either immutable or altered only by specific medical treatment. However, recent advances in knowledge require that this basic, constricting, and poorly founded assumption about the limitations of rehabilitation be challenged. Data now exist to suggest that for severe mental disorders like schizophrenia rehabilitation may not be just palliative or help compensate for deficits, but may contribute in important ways to basic recovery processes.