The study emphasizes that the cooperative is an important alternative to employment for participants with severe mental illness who do not have the capacity to be employed in the community or who do not want to leave the life-world of the cooperative that gives them pride, joy, and satisfaction.

The present study focuses on the on-going reorganisation of psychi atric care in a major county council in Sweden.

The objective of this study was to examine therapist-client interactions in the psychosocial rehabilitation process. Data comprised narratives of clients with severe mental illness as told by the therapists. Some additional data were taken from field notes collected at the interviews. Narrative analysis was based on Ricoeur's concept of mimesis. An occupational therapy perspective was employed to both generate and interpret the narratives. One of the key findings highlighted how occupational therapists' actions functioned as emplotment-supporting the clients in handling the suspense they experienced. This suspense inhibited them from taking risks and thus hindered them in taking the next step in the rehabilitation process. Another key finding was the importance of designing a supportive, tolerant, and safe therapeutic environment that could enable clients the opportunity to grow. The essential roles of the occupational therapists in this context were role model, supervisor, and overall collaborator. The narrative approach has exposed some of the important therapist-client interactions that benefit clients with severe mental illness.