[Therapy and daily life in a halfway house--excerpts from an ethnography].

This article presents the results of a study of a halfway house for mentally ill persons which was carried out in accordance with the ethnographic method. In it the interplay of "therapy" and "daily life" as the central functional principle is described. Under certain conditions the different principles of action pertaining to both spheres can lead to a distortion of the relationship and communication structure. According to the function sphere on which the patient in the halfway house mainly relies, very different methods of integration are possible in the same halfway house, each of them with its own consequences for the rehabilitation of the patient. The success of the rehabilitation also seems to depend in no small measure on the degree to which staff and patients succeed in coping with the individual function spheres not only within the halfway house but also in the processes bridging the halfway house with the outside world. This appears to be a more decisive factor than the question which therapy is applied in the individual case. The study examines the cases of two halfway house patients and demonstrates how the different types of integration were achieved and also their consequences.