Exclusion process and mental health services

From 1985 a process of desinstitutionalisation of the psychiatry based in community was settled in the province of Río Negro, Argentina. People with severe mental disability are treated with several techniques and resources covering the ninety percent of the territory of the province. In the last years, the mental health services have been receiving new types of psychiatry demands, for which there is not treatment tools that seems really effective.  

These new demands are mostly not voluntary demands. Guard hospitals or judicial orders are at the base of them. Multiple addiction persons and anti-social behavior are their characteristics. More of them are young patients, that from their youth experienced institutionalization in others areas of the State in closed and controlled care systems.  

From the notion of “désafiliation” of Robert Castel, this article argues in two directions. Firs of all, later social investigations showed a different language, logics and cultural dynamics among excluded sectors and state institutions. Secondly, within this process of “désafiliation”, the high specialization and distribution of knowledge and disciplines of the State, contributes highly to the exclusion process.