Intervention in the psychiatric hospital in the era of deinstitutionalization

This article, written following a survey of staff in a psychiatric hospital, analyzes how the trend toward deinstitutionalization has influenced institutional practice. Interviews reveal that intervenors support the objective of social reintegration, even if they find it a source of contradictions. In their daily activities, the staff are concerned mainly with improving their patients' quality of life, but this concern is also accompanied by the apprehension of encouraging dependency on the institution. Thus intervenors experience difficulty in focusing their practice on a system of representation capable of reconciling the ideal of rehabilitation with the characteristics of their clientele. Recognizing the paradoxes associated with work in the institutional setting does, however, make it possible to start a process of clarification that is likely to support intervenors and improve the quality of their relationship with chronic psychiatric patients.