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This paper examines the psychiatric work villages in Israel, which have so far had little historiographic attention. In the 1950s and 1960s, four work villages were established for people with psychiatric disabilities. They were intended to create a long-term rehabilitative alternative to the common hospitalization practice. These villages were organized around employment in various branches of farming and also offered recreational and cultural activities to alleviate the patients' loneliness and to create a community life. The villages echoed central values of the new country: labour, manufacturing, cooperativity, and cultural and community life. I will discuss the similarities between the psychiatric work villages and earlier, mostly Western, psychiatric therapeutic models, such as moral treatment and the therapeutic community model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the impact of the works of Emil Kraepelin on modern psychiatric theory and practice. Kraepelin is known for his ideas on the nature and classification of psychiatric disorders as medical discipline, as well as his research in pursuit of this field. He reinforced the primacy of clinical method as the firma terra of psychiatry that seeks and builds alliances with the auxiliary sciences of psychology.