Per la Salute mentale

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"The first person I meet is Walter, who as usual is looking for a cigarette. The second is Andrea, who feels the compelling need to have a shower before eight o’clock in the morning, a privilege he’s been denied by the sleepy nurses of the outgoing night shift - (1).
One at a time, all the colleagues on the morning shift arrive. The night was peaceful: reassured by the news of his (possible) discharge, Andrea didn’t play with matches, burning the night table as he did two nights ago. Who’s going to the Out-Patients District Department today? A colleague and I are.
While we are getting ready (we need to remember taking drugs, the therapy copybook, the keys, the parking remote control), Manuela goes about, pestering us with her requests for help......."
From:
"A day in the life of Antonio Coslovich, nurse at the Mental Health Centre."
Lorenzo Decarli

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"Ultimately, the true nature of my artistic and aesthetic act, and perhaps of my very earthly search for meaning lies precisely in this attempt to transform the heavy into the light, the rawness of solitude into the sweetness of something shared."

From:
"Vigil"
Patrizia Rigoni

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"The setting is gloomy and dark, despite the late-summer hot sun outside. The Mental Health Service is located in the General Hospital’s basement, through whose barred windows one can hardly see the street level. Rooms are illuminated by a cold neon light and a stuffy smell wafts around, mixed with the smell of oily skin and disinfectant-washed hospital sheets.
In the empty women’s room Annette is sitting on a bed, her legs stretched out under the sheets. She is wearing a small top and no bra. Her eyelids are heavy because of the drugs she has been taking. She hardly keeps her eyes open. She answers with a polite but distant tone to the nurses.
Doctor Ghiro walks in. He has come to meet Annette Dior, a new patient who arrived yesterday from the Emergency Ward. The doctor of the Emergency who visited her has already rung doctor Ghiro to talk about the lady’s situation."
From:
"Madame A."
Cristiana Sindici

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Why?
You know, I’d have preferred not to go to your funeral, not to look at the grey complexion of your skin, not to stare at your protruding bones, but it was the only way to admit to myself that you would have been no longer part of my life. It was 18th October.
Why?

From:
"She chose one, I chose the other."
Claudia Battiston

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"I would like to draw your attention to two points.
First, the reason for involuntary treatment is no longer that the patient is dangerous but that the patient needs help. In the words of the law, involuntary treatment must be provided if and when “mental condition of the person requires urgent treatment that the person does not accept”.
This has some important consequences:
the fact that a mentally ill person does not accept treatment is no longer an indication that he or she is socially dangerous;
the psychiatrist is no longer obliged to control and repress social dangerousness......................"

From:
"Evaluation of the Mental Health Law Reform in Italy. Lessons learned."
Maria Grazia Giannichedda

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What if involuntary health treatment did not exist?

Comments following the meeting of a working group.

Ivana Mina