Effective use of community meetings on psychiatric treatment units.

The community meeting is often established as a part of the program on a psychiatric treatment unit to enhance the therapeutic atmosphere and advance the unit's goals. Such meetings usually consist of at least 30 or more individuals, including patients, staff, and trainees, and therefore incorporate small-group dynamics as well as phenomena more typical of large groups. Leaders should try to ensure the effectiveness of their meetings by assessing tasks and boundaries, as well as the extent to which small-group dynamics and techniques used in large groups apply.