Informed Treatment is a narrative bibliography that examines the most effective writing in book and periodical literature about inpatient hospitalization and residential treatment. Bringing together writings scattered through areas such as psychiatry, psychology, sociology, nursing and inpatient settings throughout the world, it examines the concepts, treatment models and culture of inpatient settings, provides ways to organize milieu treatment and demonstrates how diagnosis must influence treatment. Informed Treatment analyzes effective techniques used in inpatient settings, and gives new recognition to the emerging role of the patient's family in psychiatric treatment.

The book considers all aspects of the treatment environment: the physical setting, the symbolic meaning of the environment, the ward atmosphere, partial hospitalization, and does not neglect the adjustments necessary for short-term treatment. A remarkable book for making difficult concepts and techniques clear, Informed Treatment promises to become the reference tool for staff development in any institution serving psychiatric patients.