Since the early days in the 19th century, psychiatry has been dealing with chronic courses of illness and mental disabilities. The 1975 German "Psychiatry Enquete Report" has played a major role in achieving progress in the care system, allowing mentally ill patients with impending or established handicaps to be rehabilitated or to have long-term care of varying intensity and even at home. In particular, differentiated and graduated systems of sheltered accommodation, a sheltered labour market and leisure-time support have been created. Rehabilitation may induce a response in the disabled patient and improve his skills. It may, however, also be aimed at finding or structuring an adequate living environment to enable the patient to cope. A distinction must also be drawn between early and late rehabilitation: late rehabilitation applies primarily to those patients whose disabilities have become relatively irreversible after protracted illness. The objective in this case is to maintain social integration. Early rehabilitation is desirable today if functional deficits and impairments are found to occur in conjunction with a mental illness. If a substantial disability remains in spite of intensive efforts towards rehabilitation, adequate re-integration of the affected patient may be achieved by adapting the living environment. Although the practical state of development is promising, a large number of theoretical and scientific problems remains unsolved. The topic of psychiatric vocational rehabilitation in particular is raising more and more questions. There is a lack of information on the number of chronically mentally ill patients in the community and their needs, i.e. on the number of potential users. Further studies are needed to investigate the effects, the efficacy and the course of psychiatric rehabilitation.