This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Grazia Giannichedda, M. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Grazia Giannichedda, M. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

"A Normality for Us Without Confinement for Them": Notes On the Associations of Families of the Mentally Ill

Department of Economics, Institutions and Society, University of Sassari, Dipartimento di Economia Instituzione et Societa, Universita degli studie di Sassari, Viale R.M. di Savoia 15, 071001 Sassari, Italy

Associations of families of the mentally ill arose in Italy in the early 1980s mainly in the country's northern and central regions. They denounced the inadequacies of an extramural service conceived of as an out-patient clinic filling the void left by the shutting down of asylums. The positions elaborated by these associations focus on four main themes: the distribution of the "burden of care" for the ill between ser vices and families; the ill-conceived interpretation of the families' needs owing to the professional's alleged tendency to "point the finger of guilt" at the families themselves; the demand for greater power in regard to decisions made by the services; the interac tion with the rights and liberties of the mentally ill. Two different ranges of problems are discussed. First, there is the conflict within the family between the interests and rights of its income-producing and its "dependent" members. This conflict points not to a loss but to an overload of functions shifted to the family at a time of rising expectations for the satisfaction of needs. It therefore calls for services of a new kind, i.e. services capable of making these conflicting interests and rights compatible. Second, extramural services either reject or misinterpret the asylum's labour-saving function. These services thus ascribe care for the material life of the mentally ill to the family's own resources alone. Hence the need in the field of mental health to rethink the type of approach to the family, and the necessity—crucial throughout the welfare system—of deep-going organizational and cultural transformations in order to revise the distribution of the time to care among families, public and private institu tions, conventional and voluntary services.

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. 35, No. 1, 62-70 (1989)
DOI: 10.1177/002076408903500107


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S.P. Mangen 'Continuing Care': an Emerging Issue in European Mental Health Policy International Journal of Social Psychiatry, December 1, 1994; 40(4): 235 - 245. [PDF]