[Institutional therapy. Psychiatry and penitentiary problems. Introduction]

The author relates the history of the institutional therapies which have been developed, mainly since 1929, by Hermann Simon. This avant-garde psychiatrist has not only developed the occupational therapies but he has also recommended both the liberalization of the institution and the constant analysis of its problems. The institutional therapies have the tendency, nowadays, to increase infinitely but their choice is not always logically motivated and their use risks being not very useful, if it is not determined by a clear therapeutic plan regarding the patient and by a well defined therapeutic attitude in the institution. The author introduces then the second subject of the discussion: "Psychiatry and penitentiary problems" by recalling the difficulties of the modern psychiatry to abandon its origins and to get rid of the asylum ghetto. This is probably the reason why most of the psychiatrists elude the psychological and psychiatric problems presented in prison and why they avoid every collaboration with the judicial and administrative authorities. Delicate situations, which call the psychiatrists into question by posing them problems of freedom, human rights, justice and social demands.