Empowerment: A Contemporary Approach to Community Mental Health Nursing Practice

Abstract

Traditional healthcare practices are not fully efficient; thus, it can be said that individuals with chronic mental disorders living within society can benefit from implementation of new approaches such as empowerment. This approach is defined as the process in which an individual with a mental disorder gains knowledge, skills and attitudes enabling him to adapt to relationships in “normal” life so as to eliminate the inevitability of compulsory hospitalizations. With the empowerment approach, it becomes clear that new fields of creativity and different fields of power can be discovered in these individuals. The article aims to discuss this process.

Keywords

• empowerment
• community mental health