Sourcebook of Rehabilitation and Mental Health Practice

We live in a day and age in which many fields come together to define new ones, and out of these newly defined areas come innovative practices, and emergent ways of thinking. The Sourcebook on Rehabilitation and Mental Health Practice documents one of these new fields, one formed by the coalescence of rehabilitative and mental health services and employment. Only recently have human service practitioners, policy makers, and administrators recognized that there is a growing synergy among these areas once separated by great gulfs of differences in culture, perspectives and values, and technologies. It is not happenstance that rehabilitation, mental health, and employment are becoming increasingly integrated in contemporary human services. There is considerable interest in work in contemporary society although different values and perspectives mediate this interest. For people with disabilities, an interest in work often comes from deep frustration-- from not having ready access to work, and from not having enough of it to facilitate an acce- able quality of life or independent living. Some people find work to be a source of problems that negatively affects their functioning. They find the workplace stressful and unsupportive, or they feel that work exacts too much from them, reducing their quality of life and setting into motion numerous negative personal effects (Beck, 2000).