Research findings about psychiatric rehospitalization of severely mentally ill persons have provided few insights into its meaning for patients and staff. An attributional analysis of the causes schizophrenic patients and their staff gave for rehospitalization was used to test the limits of attributions theory in predicting how the event would be viewed. Results indicated that patients tended to give internal attributions for their readmission and believed that the cause was not under their control. Staff also attributed the problem to something internal to the patient, however, they were likely to see the cause as patient effort, which is under patient control.