The aim of contemporary mental health policy is to enable people who have had a severe mental illness to lead relatively independent lives in the community, rather than be sequestered permanently in the large mental hospitals. In recent years plans to hasten the closure of many of these hospitals have become controversial and generated sharp debate about community care. From the Mental Patient to the Person contributes to this debate through an exploration of the experiences of a group of people with a history of schizophrenic illness, who are living in the community.