[Training of personnel for mental health teams]

The mental disorder is a biopsychosocial phenomenon. Starting from this idea, this paper suggests the active participation of every psychiatric professional with the organizated help of community groups, specially trained in mental health matters. A double social function is obtained by this: 1) programmed public training, and 2) practical performance in the assistence field of the same community. In Chile, in general, two social stratus are distinguished; the european culture (middle and upper class) and the popular aboriginal culture (working and rural class). Both have their own pattern about medicine: the european culture, based on the scientific concept, and the popular one based on the magic-religious thoughts. Between them, there exists a barrier. On the one hand, there is not sufficient scientific medical assistence on a national level; on the other hand, the popular medicine is precarious, but more effective in its social function (low cost, availability, absence of bureaucracy, human contact, comprehensible language of medicasters, etc.). The Integral Mental Health Programme objective, in this point, is to join a minimum of the popular medicine sociological structure with the actions of the scientific medicine. Interaction between these will be produced according to the transculturation principles. Patterns for training the 5 levels of the functions delegation are given.