Aim. This article provides a concise overview of contemporary psychiatric rehabilitation and community psychiatry tendencies in Poland. Material and method. 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 main directions in the Polish community psychiatry. The authors reviewed data referring to the present situation in mental health care and presented a synthesis of statistical analyses, local experiences and research results concerning psychiatric rehabilitation of patients with long-term mental disorders. Results and conclusions. Improvement in many areas of provided medical services as well as with respect to an integration process of various community-based psychiatric care forms is needed. Moreover, it is necessary to create a comprehensive national programme of rehabilitation of the chronically mentally ill, based on resources of individual and community units. The issue of particular importance seems to be a further, in-depth analysis of unfavourable phenomena occurring in the psychiatric care system (marginalization, stigmatization of chronically mentally ill persons, institutionalization or transitutionalization). The above mentioned phenomena show tendencies towards rejection of the de-centralization of mental health service.