This article provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary psychiatric rehabilitation and community psychiatry tendencies in Poland. On the basis of articles published in the years 1990-2007 in renowned Polish-language journals (Polish Psychiatry, Advances in Psychiatry and Neurology), an attempt was made to establish mainly directions in polish community psychiatry. Authors review the present situation and intoduce a synthesis of statistical analyses, local experiences and outcome researches oil psychiatric rehabilitation for people with long term mental illness. Improvement in many areas of provided medical services and in integration process community-based psychitric care forms is needed. Moreover, it is necessery to create a comprehensive national program of chronic mentaly ill persons' rehabilitation based on individual and community resources. It is necessary to analyse unfavourable phenomena which occured in the psychiatric care system (marginalization, stigmatization of chronic mentaly ill persons, istitutionalization or transitutionalization). The mentioned phenomena show tendencies towards rejection of the de-centralization of health service.