[Qualitative research in social psychiatry--exemplified by a research project on daily life of chronic psychiatric patients outside the psychiatric hospital in an East and a West Berlin sector].

Qualitative research methods give an opportunity to investigate the everyday reality of dealing with and understanding of chronic mental illness as a social reality in local context. By the reconstruction of the perspective of the mentally ill, their relatives and their professional caregivers we analyze the cultural and social side of chronicity. This approach is illustrated by a still running study in which we compare the situation of chronic mental patients in an east- and west-district of Berlin after the fall of the wall. The research method and the steps of generalization of results are demonstrated by an case example.