[Communal psychiatry: psychiatric treatment center, Mönchengladbach (author's transl)].

In a town area of 140 000 inhabitants an organized psychiatric treatment and welfare unit with an out-patient department and complementary services has been built up based on a day-and-night clinic dating from 1969 and a clinic which opened in December 1972. In co-operation with other persons and institutions working in the psychosocial field it cares for mentally ill adults of the region, including addicts and mentally ill aged persons. The stages of development, the present-day structure and functioning of the system are described; in particular, problems are discussed which arise from the shifting of treatment, aid and care from the intramural to the extramural sector as a result of the consistent application of the communal aid concept.