Meeting Boundaries: Exploring the Faces of Social Inclusion Beyond Modern Mental Health Systems
(2020) Social Inclusion — Vol. 8, n° 1, p. 214-224 (2020)
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- Abstract
- (en) This paper examines social inclusion in the context of the deinstitutionalisation of mental health care. It aims to disentangle the concept of social inclusion through considering people with mental health problems’ subjective experiences of inclusion. It draws on two qualitative research evaluations of an ongoing Belgian reform of mental health care that was launched in 2010. The results emphasise that access to contemporary mental health systems has been increasingly difficult for socially vulnerable populations experiencing complex and long-term mental health problems. In reference to Luhmann’s theory of social systems, this paper connects difficult access to mental health care with the functional differentiation of modern mental health systems. It then discusses how mental health and alternative services respectively place themselves as mediators between people with mental health problems and society: while the former are based on specification, which implies endorsing the role of patient in order to eventually achieve social inclusion; the latter are based on de-specification and create heterogeneous communities, where people with mental health problems can explore the boundaries of various functionally differentiated social systems. Finally, this paper suggests that alternative services complement modern mental health systems by offering a processual understanding of social inclusion, which moves beyond the limits of modern mental health systems and contributes to social change.
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Walker, C., & Thunus, S. (2020). Meeting Boundaries: Exploring the Faces of Social Inclusion Beyond Modern Mental Health Systems. Social Inclusion, 8(1), 214-224. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/125810 (Original work published 2020)