The Nature of the Difficulty Addressed by Psychiatric Rehabilitation.
  The first terms to be clarified are those that describe the type of difficulties for which psychiatric rehabilitation was designed. Various terms have been used both in mental health/rehabilitation literature and in practice: psychiatric illness, impairment, psychiatric disability, emotional problems, psychiatric background, and psychiatric experience. The variety of terms indicates varying points of view about the nature of the problem and the extent to which “mental illness” is an illness or a sociopolitical problem (Chamberlin, 1990). This text uses psychiatric disability, in preference to other terms when referring to the aspect of the problem which psychiatric rehabilitation addresses. The term psychiatric disability does not speak to the issue of the cause of mental illness nor does it imply that a particular psychiatric diagnosis is either correct or useful. In using the term disability, rather than illness, reference is made to the restriction in functioning experienced by some people with a psychiatric diagnosis of major mental illness or a long term psychiatric experience. The term impairment is used to refer to what is typically thought of as psychiatric symptoms or the personal distress related to the psychiatric difficulty or problem. The Individual with the Psychiatric Disability The individual with psychiatric “experience” or psychiatric disability is referred to in this text variously as: consumer, consumer-survivor, client, or person. The terms used reflect both the evolution of the field and the current debate within it. The debate centers on the question of what mode of identification most accurately portrays the individual’s actual situation or enhances the individual’s potential integration as a valued member of society (Caras, 1994; Fisher, 1994). Consumer or consumer survivor is a generic term used to refer to the relationship of the individual to the mental health system. The terminology of con