Therapeutic agents of assertive community treatment

The goal of this study was to learn how assertive community treatment (ACT) contributes to the improvement of those with serious mental illness in ord er to contribute to the growing clinical literature regarding the therapeut ic agents of ACT teams. Methods included reviewing the case records of thre e ACT clients who have improved significantly, as well as interviewing the clients themselves and their clinicians. The results indicated that there w as significant agreement among the case records, the clients, and their cli nicians in identifying the most useful aspects of assertive community treat ment. Primary among these factors were the persistence demonstrated by ACT clinicians in engaging their clients, the trust that clients developed in t heir clinicians, and as a result, the process by which their clinicians bec ame "guides" to the world of psychiatric and social services that further f acilitated their clients' community adjustment. In closing, we consider imp lications from these findings both for staff development for ACT team membe rs, and for suggestions toward the development of a model of recovery from serious mental illness.