NORMALIZING ACUTE-CARE - A DAY HOSPITAL CRISIS RESIDENCE ALTERNATIVE TO INPATIENT HOSPITALIZATION/

Normalization is the use of culturally valued means to enable people w ith disabilities to live culturally valued lives. In this article, the authors describe an effort to bring normalization practices to acute psychiatric care. They describe a day hospital/crisis respite diversio n program that serves as an alternative to acute inpatient hospitaliza tion and sketch the research project that fostered it. The authors arg ue that a day hospital/crisis respite provides effective clinical care comparable to inpatient hospitalization but achieves greater potentia l for recovery through a normalizing philosophy and practice. An impli cation of this finding is that such programs based on the principle of normalization may be both cost effective as well as more empowering f or patients.