The practice of caring for individuals in the community, rather than in an institutional environment with resultant effects on the individual, the individual's family, the community, and the health care system.

The process by which a person or group of persons comes to be regarded or treated as lacking in human qualities.

Special hospitals which provide care to the mentally ill patient.

Diagnostic, therapeutic and preventive mental health services provided for individuals in the community.

Organized services to provide mental health care.

Psychiatric illness or diseases manifested by breakdowns in the adaptational process expressed primarily as abnormalities of thought, feeling, and behavior producing either distress or impairment of function.