Trieste 2010: What is 'Mental Health' ?

The Permanent Conference
for Mental Health Worldwide

Thematic
streams

Tuesday,
9 February

Wednesday,
10 February

Thursday,
11 February

Friday,
12 February

Saturday,
13 February

Promoters
and
Supporters

The presentation of the workshops

Download the meeting schedule

THEMATIC STREAMS

KNOWLEDGE AND PARADIGMS: the question of universal human rights – to health, citizenship and free expression - still appears in relation to specific areas of knowledge that, directly or indirectly, legitimise or undermine the demand for rights. In a period characterised by the fragmentation and conflict among different paradigms, the coexistence of different practices and models finds its limit in institutions which are weak, disconnected and suffocated by procedures. Is it possible to define mental health, in terms of its meaning for persons and care systems, by emphasising its difference from reductionist psychiatry?

THE CRITICAL ANTI-ISTITUTIONAL PRACTICE: in the, by now, worldwide process of de-hospitalising psychiatric care, the shift from custody-control to care, from the hospital to the community, from institutions to services, and from the illness to the person has been only partial. Is it possible to create a comprehensive system for a given community or territory that responds to the healthcare and personal needs of individuals, and which activates the human, economic, social and cultural resources of a community? Who are the actors, and what are the places and forms of deinstitutionalisation?

THE “DEVIANT MAJORITY”: SOCIAL ECONOMY AND INCLUSION: the current historical-political situation, characterised by the ongoing economic crisis, compels us to redefine the standards for macro-economic goals and social cohesion. The crisis calls into question individual and collective security, lifestyles, values and possibilities of survival. Who makes up the “deviant majority” today and who is committed to guaranteeing care, rights and social inclusion for weak and vulnerable persons? Where is the social economy headed, as it steers a course between the market and public economies? What is the role of the social coop and what occurs in its encounter with the market? And in terms of places for care and care of place: the experience of working in new locations (a transformation and construction of new contexts which began in the asylum) forces us to take diversity into account.

MEMORY, OPEN ARCHIVES AND COMMUNICATION: contemporary to and co-extensive with the construction of the present, of the reality which confronts us in the here and now with unparalleled urgency, there is the question of the definition of memory or, more precisely, of a plurality of conflicting memories. This plurality can be found in the archive, not only in terms of rethinking and re-discovering the past and the present without cancellation, ideological manipulation and falsification, but also in order to make it immediately accessible and interpretable in documentary terms, thereby establishing a “historical distance” from an excessive proximity (the “false immediacy”) of the “contemporary”. A present without memory too often reproduces “institutionalisation” – apparently without concept. From memory to the actuality of contexts and persons: what image of mental health or, more often, mental illness, do the media provide today? How can radio and television, the Internet and web TV contribute to combating stigma and social exclusion today?

CORE AND AIM OF THE MEETING:
A GLOBAL NETWORK FOR COMMUNITY HEALTH AS A “MENTAL HEALTH TOOL”.