[The evolution of psychiatry in Uruguay]

Uruguay, a country in South America situated between Brazil and Argentina, has a population of 3 million, a literacy rate of 97%, and health coverage of 87% . Treatment of patients with mental disturbances has existed throughout its history. From colonial times and in the Spanish religious tradition, treatment of mental alienation had recourse to the "madhouse" of the Charity Hospital in Montevideo (1788). Half a century after independence the National Lunatic Asylum was built (1880), and the field of psychiatry began to develop, centred on the asylum-hospital. Within a French medical heritage, institutions such as the Chair of Psychiatry (1907) and the Society of Psychiatry (1923) were created; their academic activities permanently invigorated the growth of this branch of medicine. Since the late 1960's, with the contribution of both European thought and the North American influence, psychiatry has begun a progressive transformation, with positive gains (extension of psychiatry to the whole country, more pragmatic treatments with community involvement, academic links with non-public institutions, integration between models, etc.), but also with negative aspects (an increasing risk of abandoning the discipline of psychopathology and of trivialising diagnosis and therapy).