Involving clients and their relatives and friends in psychiatric care: Case managers' experiences of training in resource group assertive community treatment.

The purpose of this project was to do a qualitative study of an integrated and flexible ACT model, the Resource Group Assertive Community Treatment (RACT), as seen from the perspective of case managers in training. The resource group normally consists of the client, the case manager and other available personnel in the medical and support areas, as well as family members. Nineteen theses were randomly chosen from a set of 80 theses written by a group of Swedish trainee case managers. The exams were conducted as case studies and concerned 19 clients with psychotic problems, 11 men and 8 women. "The Empirical Phenomenological Psychological Method" was used in the analysis, which generated five overarching themes: (a) the RACT program; (b) the resource group; (c) the empowerment of the client; (d) progress in treatment; and (e) the case manager. These together constituted a "therapeutic circle," in which methods and tools used within the RACT made it possible for the resource group to empower the clients who, as a result, experienced progress with treatment, during which the case manager was the unifying and connecting link.