'The hidden society': the practical use of multi-dimensional scaling to illuminate the pattern of relationships between long-stay psychiatric residents.

This paper briefly reports testing the use of multi-dimensional scaling as a method to illuminate the complex pattern of relationships existing between patients in a long-stay psychiatric setting. The results did not support the hypothesis that recently formed rehabilitation groups in the hostel would serve to explain the pattern of relationships between patients. The results did, however, promote a more informed discussion regarding the origin and implications of patient relationships in long-stay psychiatric care, which served to revise staff ideas and options regarding the organization of care. Relationships between long-stay disabled psychiatric patients are notoriously opaque to observers. The use of multi-dimensional scaling helped make them more transparent.