[Seeking refuge in the community.]

One of the many objectives of psychiatrie deinstitutionaliza-tion is to try to ensure that individuals who receive treatment reintegrate their community. The author points out that, for a certain category of young people undergoing treatment, such an objective requires a much broader approach involving more than psychiatric intervention alone; an increasing proportion of young people are left without community support and using prison as their drop-in centre. The situation is examined from the points of view of institutional practice and the life experience of subjects. The author sheds light on another step of psychiatric deinstitutionalization, namely social deinstitutionalization of a community's acceptance, support and accompaniment of the new generation of so-called mental patients.