It is no easy matter to overcome the majority of psychiatric disorders. As a consequence, when individuals require psychiatric treatment, this can be viewed as a sort of "stigma." It is this stigma that allowed mental hospitals whose focus was on isolating such individuals from society at large to come into existence and to be perpetuated. Resolving this sense of stigma is the key to transitioning from such outdated mental hospitals to psychiatric hospitals that focus solely on treatment.
 The "stigma" is a defense mechanism of individuals and groups against what they perceive as"incurable madness."That is to say, it can be understood as a partial object relation and regression to a basic assumption group. Furthermore, traditional team treatment so common in Japan (team treatment based on a physical medicine model derived from descriptive psychiatry) appears to be involved in the formation and strengthening of this stigma. This is because it is a science and a treatment method that deals only with patients' pathology.
 Consequently, at Nozoe Hospital, as a health care reform methodology, we utilize dynamic team treatment (team treatment based on a therapeutic community model derived from dynamic psychiatry) that emphasizes not only patients' pathological state, but also their health status. As a result, our staff members view our patients and our patients view themselves in a total object relation including both pathology and health aspects, and through consideration for group dynamics we have achieved a shift away from a basic assumption group and toward a working group. This has engendered "anti-stigma," which has helped the hospital achieve successful treatment outcomes, with 115 of the 152 patients hospitalized at the time the reform was initiated having been discharged.
 There has been similar success in terms of relations with members of the community. Initially, patients experienced delusions of persecution (paranoid schizoid position) regarding community members who had a negative view of the hospital and its residents, and such feelings only served to place them in a seemingly inescapable labyrinth. However, when some patients received invitations to join a neighborhood association (providing an experience of being accepted by community members), their anger toward those community members evaporated and they became prepared to work on changing community relations.
 Eliminating a sense of stigma takes both education and enlightenment, and engendering anti-stigma requires the experiences of "acceptance" and"being accepted" arising from direct, mutual interaction.
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