Psychology & Psychological Research International Journal

ISSN: 2576-0319

Public Policies from the Professionalization of Psychology in

Argentina to the Mental Health Law (1954 - 2010)

Campodonico N* Research Article

National University of La Plata, Argentina
Volume 3 Issue 4
Received Date: April 25, 2018
*Corresponding author: Nicolás Campodónico, National University of La Plata, 10 N
Published Date: May 25, 2018
1885 La Plata, Argentina, Tel: 221 6541199; Email:
nicolas_campodonico@hotmail.com

Abstract
At present, new historical conditions make Mental Health a topic of growing concern both at the level of public policy and
theoretical orientations. In the context of current changes, social policies, and health policies in particular, are
transformed into the redefinition of the functions of the State. For this reason, we intend to analyze the avatars and social,
political, cultural and economic contexts, through which the formulations and applications of public policies in mental
health have gone through in the history of Argentina, taking as a period from: the professionalization of the Psychology
from 1954 until the formulation of the Mental Health Law in 2010. To thus historicize the vicissitudes and implications
that arose in this period. Thus history helps us with what is presented as conflicting within our field, but also what
appears as unquestionable.
Keywords: Mental Health; Public Policy; Cultural Influence; History

Introduction health practices in general, whose specificity is defined by

the particular social construct of meaning with respect to
In the context of current changes, social policies, the madness produced in modernity, and its specific
including health policies in particular, are severely institutional forms [1]. The configuration of the field of
transformed in the redefinition of State functions. mental health can be characterized as a process that was
Practices in mental health are, obviously, traversed by given through the passage from an asylum-asylum model
these policies that generate concerns and occupations, to the important policies in the field of mental health that
analysis and reflections and involve movements and are currently being developed. These policies on mental
constant transformations in that field. We thought it health in turn raise the issue of the path from the tutelary
important to start from the reference of the authors paradigm to the paradigm of human rights [2].
regarding the consideration of mental health practices as
a simultaneous set of representations, knowledge and In view of the criticism of the asylum-asylum system,
specific actions of a defined field, mental health, non- the generation of diverse assistance proposals, it is
homogeneous space, contradictions and antagonisms. possible to be located in the early fifties in the last
Thus, the field of mental health becomes a sub-field of century, linked, on the one hand , to the establishment of

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the Social State in the central countries, and on the other, the asylum-asylum institution that will be the paradigm of
later, to the social movements tending to question ruling the medicalization of madness is consolidated. We can
orders. The redistribution operated by social policies at situate that, in the first place, in a beginning "the
that time tended to provide margins of health and welfare madman" was in charge of the legal discourse who made a
to the population and to maintain the limits of social social and non-therapeutic approach, placing it next to the
conflicts within the domain of technical-administrative marginal, criminal, among others, constituting in this way
knowledge. We can mention that most of the an undifferentiated group that attempted against the
transformations in mental health were included in more material and social order of the family and the State. All
extensive health reforms. Such is the case of English this under the paradigm of danger.
community psychiatry, the Italian Psychiatric Reform,
among others. However, with the exception of the Italian The presence of medicine in the treatment of madness,
experience, all these experiences end up coexisting with allowed extracting the madman from this group, to
asylums and, in some cases, seeing the reappearance of provide a category outside the social and legal discourse.
objectifying and segregate assumptions within It is necessary to clarify, in this point, that medicalization
supposedly innovative practices. was not exclusive to psychiatry. It is a facet of a process in
which modern science, which supposedly produces an
Psychopathology and the Field of Mental objective and true knowledge, external to the interests
Health and optics of the various social subjects, was instituted as
a reason for power, replacing the place of religion.
It is necessary to state the coordinates of the Positivism as a hegemonic thought raised science as
emergence of psychiatry, which is born as a branch of guarantor of the rationality of social order. In that precise
medicine in order to respond to a demand of epoch place, medicine was called to exercise a computer role in
consequent to the birth of modern states. This is what the name of the good of the subjects and the development
Michel Foucault (1967) conceptualized about his political of society. At the beginning of the 20th century, this model
birth in the context of the French Revolution [3]. In a city began to be questioned by nascent mental hygiene. In this
designed to roam free citizens in public spaces, and in a way we see that the concept of "mental health field", so
society that assumed that subjects ruled by reason made important today, has its particular history. It is located as
the necessary choices to position themselves freely and an inheritor of hygienism, a movement that aimed to
individually, it was necessary to define a material and prevent the various health problems in the social set.
symbolic space to house to "madness" and to protect
those who could not exercise freedom because they were Mental Hygiene emerged as a movement at a moment
"alienated". and in a certain place: at the beginning of the 20th century
in the United States. Its protagonists sought to change the
It was supposed a society composed of rational situation of therapies, hospitals and patients hospitalized
subjects that made decisions based on the maximum in asylum institutions, emphasizing the need for
benefit at the lowest cost and that was developed prevention. This hygienism was opposed to alienism and
harmonically by the engine of market competition. The the monopoly of the answers given by psychiatry and its
State was the guarantor of compliance with this contract institution, the asylum. The transformations of psychiatry
and should also define the spaces for those who were under the influence of hygienism are described by Leo
disruptive within this scheme. Hence the birth of welfare Kanner: "what used to be considered a circumscribed
institutions founded on philanthropic logic, and sustained pathological entity was now regarded as the harmful
in an articulation between science and morality. In this activity of a person, sometimes of recognized organic
context, the new branch of medicine, "mental" medicine, foundation, often without that etiology but always
instituted what were formerly prisons as healing spaces. impregnated by personality factors and the environment.
The deprivation of rights, in the institution of Psychiatry left the insane asylums, divorced from the
guardianship, happened to be disguised by the restrictions imposed on the legal concept of insanity,
assumption of care or healing. In this regard Emiliano confinement and devoted itself to attending all kinds of
Galende (1990) says: "the great change in therapeutic defective human behavior, of any intensity. Although the
practices is introduced by the medicalization of the care mental hygienism criticized the conditions of the asylum
relationship, going from what was a compulsory and model, it did not manage to modify the principles of
police confinement with validation of the Church to a deprivation of rights or the model of the seclusion that
compulsive treatment of the sick" [4]. In this confluence, characterized it [5]. However, we can say that it took the

Campodonico N. Public Policies from the Professionalization of Psychology in Argentina to the Copyright© Campodonico N.
Mental Health Law (1954 - 2010). Psychol Psychology Res Int J 2018, 3(4): 000164.
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first steps to open the perspectives of the practices not be understood as the deployment, extension or
traditionally circumscribed to asylum. Despite this, in the modernization of psychiatry, since; on the contrary, it
second half of the twentieth century, in the postwar constitutes its crisis, expressed precisely in its
period, the processes of psychiatric reform began within institutional image, and must lead to the construction of a
the framework of the birth of public policies on mental new model of action, which are mental health policies [4].
health.
Mental health policies were as diverse as the contexts
Although mental hygienism criticized the conditions of and states in which they were developed. However, there
the asylum model, it did not manage to modify the are some trends that, in general terms, can be indicated as
principles of deprivation of rights or the model of implicit or desirable in the reform proposals:
seclusion that characterized it. However, we can say that 1. Focus attention on the concept of mental suffering or
it took the first steps to open the perspectives of the subjective suffering and not mental illness.
practices traditionally circumscribed to asylum. Despite 2. Break the assumption or representation of danger
this, only in the second half of the twentieth century, in associated with seclusion. Modify the legal rules in this
the postwar period, the processes of psychiatric reform regard.
began within the framework of the birth of public policies 3. Propose outpatient or integrated forms to the society of
on mental health. It is from the crisis of the 1930s, with attention of traditional psychiatric pathologies.
the reformulation of the State under the influence of 4. Work on the social production of subjective suffering in
Keynesianism that will be generated, for practices and the spheres of social life community in health
conceptions in health, a context of profound promotion activities.
transformations with the birth of universal social policies, 5. Incorporate the conceptualization of citizenship and
in replacement of the philanthropy of the liberal states. rights as a component of curative and preventive
For the purposes of this work, health policies matter and practice.
mental health policies are related to them. The Social or 6. Recognize that the complexity of the problem implies
Welfare States had their greatest development in the an interdisciplinary approach and intersectorial.
central countries in the period from the post-war period
to the crisis of the mid-1970s. (Stolkiner, 2003-2004) This In recent times, new conditions and historical
new conception of the State and of rights is directly conceptions make mental health a topic of growing
reflected in the definition of health that the World Health concern and occupation. In line with this reality, the
Organization (WHO) states at its birth in 1948 [6,7]: International Mental Health Conference was held in 1996,
"Health is a state of complete well-being: physical, mental and the final document of that meeting, in accordance
and social, and not only the absence of disease." It is a with the general trend in health, highlighted the need to
definition that proposes to assume health as a complex reorient efforts from the institutional to the community
object and as a social responsibility. So we can point out level, and to include mental health services in health
in this definition that it would be about seeing health as a insurance programs. In addition, the creation of programs
welfare state, complete, effective and efficient. designed to ensure the social development of children and
the rights of people with mental disabilities was
About this process, says Galende (1990): "in the fifties stimulated. 2002 is declared by the WHO International
the new reordering of the mental in the world is being Year of Mental Health and as part of it the World Program
defined. Goffman shows in the United States the creation of Action on Mental Health was announced. In our
of a new pathology due to internment. The sociotherapies country, in the Federal Health Plan 2004-2007 structured
and the therapeutic communities grow throughout the according to the Primary Health Care, the Ministry of
North American territory. When the Kennedy Law arrived Health of the Argentine Republic considers Mental Health
in 1963, with the Federal Program of Community as one of the important areas on which it is necessary to
Psychiatry, the land was abandoned. In France, from implement actions specific but denounces at the same
Saint-Alban and with the support of the Patriotic Front, time "the lack of information to establish baselines in
health reform is promulgated and the creation of the some of the main health problems and risk factors in
sector as a new policy in Mental Health. In Italy, the Argentina [8]. In this way and in accordance with the
Democratic Front, rebuilds the health organization and importance of attending to this field that is becoming
installs the first therapeutic communities, then, with more and more important, the implementation of
Basaglia, lead to the closure of the Trieste Hospital and programs and plans in the field of mental health is
the current mental health law. All this movement should intensifying since the so-called Primary Care.

Campodonico N. Public Policies from the Professionalization of Psychology in Argentina to the Copyright© Campodonico N.
Mental Health Law (1954 - 2010). Psychol Psychology Res Int J 2018, 3(4): 000164.
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A certain approach to the theoretical proposals on 1999) Other authors think the work in Primary Care from
Primary Care allows us to think that there is currently no a different perspective. One of the criteria is equality in
univocal definition of the term. There are different the quality of care (Galende, 1990); This means that
meanings, conditioned by the different theoretical working at this level of care is not only "the gateway to
approaches of the health disciplines that implement it. the health system, nor is it medicine for the poor"
From a certain perspective, one thinks then, the work in (Galende, 1990, p.222), but it means assuring health
this level of attention as carried out by different coverage to all citizens of the territory regardless of their
professionals who work the health problems from social class. It is about the coverage being for everyone.
interdisciplinary teams, being its objective the integral This approach to the theoretical proposals on Primary
attention of the problems that the community and the Care allows us to think that there are different meanings,
subjects that compose it present However, a conditioned by the different theoretical approaches
differentiation of prevention of health care based on three typical of the health disciplines that implement it [4].
levels: primary, secondary and tertiary. Primary Health
Care aims to promote and protect the health of the Therefore, we can recognize that each epoch has a
population, a way to anticipate the disease from particular form of suffering production and of responding
preventive actions. Among them are Health Education, to them as well. Following this idea, Galende (1992)
Immunization and Environmental Sanitation. It is carried states, as a hypothesis that in the current conditions it is
out essentially in the Health Centers of the Programmatic expected a growth of what is encompassed under the
Area and the Services of Promotion and Protection of the name of narcissistic pathologies: character disorders,
Health of the public hospitals. It constitutes the first level perversions, functional diseases, psychosomatic disorders
of health care. Secondary Health Care is represented by and addictions, as well as an increase in family violence
the ambulatory care of patients in outpatient clinics, even and suicides [10]. In conjunction with the increase of
in cases that require clinical and / or surgical depressions of various kinds. However, some of these
hospitalization of common pathologies. It constitutes the problems were already relevant and their apparent
second level of health care. Tertiary Health Care is the increase in relative terms may come from their exit from a
level of maximum medical complexity, either due to the space of social invisibility. The clearest example is that of
pathology that patients present, as well as the necessary mistreatment of women, their increase cannot be
diagnostic and treatment technical resources. They are assessed by the demand for assistance. As an
patients who are admitted to Intensive Care Units and / epidemiological indicator, the demand is of little value
or Coronary Unit, as well as other services such as given that until a few years ago there were no services
Neurosurgery. It constitutes the third level of health care. that would provide assistance to this problem and it was
consensually located in the sphere of the intimate, not
In this sense, Primary Health Care (PHC) is a strategy transcending the domestic space. Perhaps the
defined at the Alma Ata conference in 1978, where an modifications of representations of gender and women's
advance was established to overcome biomedical models, situation tend to facilitate their shift of the domestic and
focused on the disease that privilege expensive, curative intimate sphere and favor the emergence of the same in
services in establishments of second and third level by the public sphere. Perhaps one of the effects of the crisis is
models based on the promotion of health and preventive to make situations more transparent, to de-disseminate
of the disease at reasonable costs for the population. It is processes and to challenge theoretical revisions in order
there that Primary Health Care was defined as: "essential to adjust the tools to the problems. Probably it is
health care, based on scientifically founded and socially necessary to think about new categorizations in function
acceptable methods and practical technologies, made of the new forms of production of suffering. In these new
available to all individuals in the community, through categorizations, the diffuse (and eventually
their full participation and at a cost that the community asymptomatic) malaise of the crisis of the institutions
and the country can support each and every one of the cannot be left out [10].
stages of its development, in a spirit of self-responsibility
and self-determination ". (WHO, 1978) Analyzing the For mental health policies, the objectives and
concept of PHC, Yamila Comes states that "international foundational formulations are maintained, enriched with
organizations only postulate broad and often diffuse the advances in the experiences of their achievements and
definitions [9]. The way in which each government the conceptual and doctrinal refinement in the various
interprets what is the Primary Health Care makes the disciplines and perspectives that are integrated in the
Public Health model in which it is registered ". (Stolkiner, field of mental health. Among them, those that have had a

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Mental Health Law (1954 - 2010). Psychol Psychology Res Int J 2018, 3(4): 000164.
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significant development in these decades are those that rapidly and produced new social and health problems. In
are driven by jurisprudence and policies that have to do this way, the nascent ideas of "Hygienism" were
with human and social rights. Although from the incorporated, which aimed to prevent the various health
principles of mental health was denounced and fought problems (from epidemics to crimes) in the social set.
against segregation and violence exercised on the "crazy"
and their families, or on alcoholics or drug problems, is In the following decades there was a transition that
simultaneously with the global and national increase in was undressing the limits of the policies of alienists and
fighting for those rights that begin to make visible the hygienists due to structural indigence, typical of the logic
problems of mental suffering and their cultural ways of of the asylum; and by the chronic insufficiency of
inhuman treatment as a problem that must necessarily be resources denied by the ruling classes. In 1931 the
seen as a violation of fundamental rights. With this, legal prominent psychiatrist Gonzalo Bosch published a text on
frameworks were produced in accordance with numerous "The terrible aspect of madness in the Argentine
principles, agreements, international declarations and Republic", in which he criticized a failed state, a crisis of
recommendations of international organizations, to which legitimacy in psychiatry and its debts regarding the
our country adhered and which in some of them resolution of the problem of psychiatry in Argentina.
collaborated in drafting, committing to use them as guides However, new social assistance institutions of vulnerable
for the planning of public policies. groups were created that were parallel to the offers of the
first private psychiatric hospitalization services: the
Psychiatry in Argentina Frenopáticos Institutes. While the poor crazy people had
to go to abandoned public institutions, those with
In 1854 the Hospicio de Mujeres was created, today economic resources could access places of greater
"Braulio Moyano" and in 1863 that of Men, now Hospital comfort and convenience. In Argentina, mutual
"José T. Borda", in the city of Buenos Aires. Framed in a organizations had passed in the decades from 20 to 40,
vision of individualistic health, sustained by the initiative grouping by nationality of origin, the order by branch of
and the gift of charitable societies and often directed by production, linked to the respective trade union
confessional powers. In the case of the first asylums, in a organizations. These mutual organizations, formed by the
short time they reflected images of great imprisonment, unions on the basis of voluntary association, had been
neglecting the special conditions with which the alienist encouraged from the political power, during the period
had to produce the so-called "moral treatment". 1945-55. For this reason, gradually they went from
voluntariness to compulsory, through Collective Labor
This situation was partially alleviated by the alienist Agreements. In such a way that, towards the end of the
Domingo Cabred who created the National Colony of 1950s, the expectation grew that they would constitute
Aliens "Open Door" in 1899, and in 1906 the Directorate the institutional basis of an integral Social Security
of the Commission of Asylums and Regional Hospitals. In system. Although they were created with broad objectives
1920, Cabred promoted the construction of numerous of social assistance (own clinics, supply stores, vacation
colonies and asylums, and carried out a series of reforms camps, leisure fields, housing plans), from that moment
that were in the intentions of some progressive alienists. the government policy will assign them as a nuclear
Cabred intended to extend this system (Open Door) to all mission, finance medical care under the generic name of
types of alienated and stressed that the role of the colony Social Works.
asylums was to provide assistance and education.
Practically there were no leaks, due to the well-being he Since the 40s, the Welfare State in Argentina, with a
had in the sick. He argued the importance of a treatment populist characteristic, was consolidated through the
where the patient developed varied tasks in the open air, emergence and consolidation of Peronism. The creation
with the greatest amount of freedom compatible with his from the state of union bureaucratic organizations that
condition and with the possibility of also performing a begin to administer the newly born social works,
number of complementary tasks that channel work skills culminated, for Carpintero (2011), in the alliance of this
[11]. new actor in the field of health with psychiatric
psychiatrists in their defense of the asylum device [12].
However, the transformations of the country's social The health minister from 1946 to 1952 was the
situation compromised this panorama. The agro-export neurologist Ramón Carrillo. In mental health, he tried to
model and the promotion of immigration implied a give material solutions to problems such as the lack of
displacement of population to the cities, which grew hospital capacity and coordination between different

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Mental Health Law (1954 - 2010). Psychol Psychology Res Int J 2018, 3(4): 000164.
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jurisdictions responsible for the treatment of madness. In repressed some experiences. The reforms of this era
this way new places of attention were reformed and have remained as testimony of partial experiences that
inaugurated, such as the new Hospices built by pavilions. were not integrated into a National Mental Health plan.
In the field of psychiatry it was controversial. On the one The 1976 civic-military dictatorship finally installed
hand he found support in the nationalist psychiatrists of State Terrorism. Mental health services are destroyed
the Hospitals and Colonies, especially in the Hospice of as the institutions were intervened by a civic-military
Men. These, together with the union bureaucrats, were bureaucracy within the framework of a project aimed
the ones who threw Enrique Pichón Rivière out of the at carrying out the National Security Doctrine. At this
hospital accusing him of being a "communist" and of moment, a determined privatist policy in the field of
"promoting homosexuality" for having started to health begins to take hold. That is, if until now the State
implement therapeutic groups with patients. But the had disregarded Mental Health; private groups begin to
medical guild and most of the psychiatrists linked to take power to put the field of Mental Health at the
Hygienism did not support Carrillo's reforms. For the service of their economic interests.
author, in those years of the Peronist government the
deterioration of the situation in the asylums remained. When the democratic transition period begins in the
early eighties, we try to generate a Mental Health policy to
In our country, in the mid-fifties the tasks to be carried recover the spaces destroyed by the dictatorship. From
out were enormous due to the disastrous conditions of the perspective of Primary Health Care, experiences such
the hospices. During the year 1957, in Argentina, with the as the Pilot Plan for Mental and Social Health (La Boca-
imposition of developmentalism as an economic, political Barracas) are carried out, which are quickly exhausted
and social strategy in the period of the Frondizi due to the lack of an adequate budget and a political
government and during the dictatorship of Onganía, three decision to continue them. Once again, it starts with pilot
decisive events took place to reaffirm in our country the plans that end shortly after not having the support of the
"health field" mental": State. In this sense, Enrique Carpintero (2011)
1. The National Institute of Mental Health is created. emphasizes that the history of our country is the history
2. Dr. Mauricio Goldenberg founded the first of pilot plans and the continuity of asylums since the end
psychopathology service at the General Hospital of of the 19th century. The greatest achievement, at this
Lanús, that is, outside a psychiatric hospital time, was the antimanicomial reform carried out in the
3. a career in Psychology is created at the Faculty of Province of Río Negro.
Philosophy and Arts of the UBA. It was not only the
psychiatrist who was solely responsible for mental Finally, in the '90s a capitalist neoliberal policy
health, other actors also appeared, especially governed by deregulation, privatization and competition
psychologists who, despite having severely limited was reaffirmed. Health is mainly in the hands of the
clinical practice, were gaining important spaces in market. That is, the big laboratories and medicine
hospitals and mental health centers, although in many companies. As Maitena María Fidalgo (2008) points out
cases should work for free. The conceptualizations of [13]: "The general panorama of the health sector shows
Psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology, institutional an acute crisis of social security, discredited and
psychology and community psychiatry began to take an underfunded; a public sector that maintains a stable
interest in the reality of the asylum institutions with a budget in the face of increasing demand; a private sector
critical look that emphasized the need to deploy that meets the needs of sectors with certain purchasing
community and preventive-care practices. During these power, fragmenting, and differentiating health plans
years, the first mental health residences, the inpatient according to the ability to pay. Thus, the health sector was
rooms in general hospitals, the day hospitals and the consolidated as another market, radicalizing the
therapeutic communities were created. At the same distributive bid that had been registered for decades ". Its
time, the therapeutic approaches that showed the consequence is a righting of the management of social
potential benefits of extending the limits of crises that will modify the rules of the game in the field of
psychoanalysis were disseminated: group, family and health policies. The State disappears in its social function
institutional treatments, psychodrama, social of serving public health to serve private interests. In this
psychology and children's psychoanalysis. However, way, the dismantling of public institutions takes place
the asylum structure remained in force supported by since health is in the hands of the private initiative whose
the different political powers that go through the computer axis is the cost-benefit ratio. The process of
decades of the '60s and' 70s, which prohibited and capitalist globalization brings with it the exclusion and

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Mental Health Law (1954 - 2010). Psychol Psychology Res Int J 2018, 3(4): 000164.
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disaffiliation of large sectors of the population that are attention of those with mental illness". (2012, p. 134)
thus displaced to the margins of society. Among the main innovations, are:

Discussion and Conclusion • The emphasis placed on interdisciplinarity, which

should characterize the practices of the teams. It is
Thus we find the National Mental Health Law No. equated to the members of the same in relation to
26627, enacted on November 25, 2010 and promulgated decision making and the possibility of occupying
in December of the same year, and it is from this that a positions of management and direction of services.
framework of reference in the change of old practices is Even psychopharmacological treatments are planned
generated socio-sanitary and hospitalization of the within the framework of interdisciplinary approaches.
nineteenth century [14]. On the other hand, in said Law, • Community orientation, intersectoral work and the
Article 3 recognizes Mental Health "as a process requirement of informed consent for patient care are
determined by historical, socio-economic, cultural, established.
biological and psychological components, whose
• Provisions regarding hospitalizations: they become the
preservation and improvement implies a dynamic of
last therapeutic resource, of a restrictive nature.
social construction linked to the concretion of the human
Therefore, the care process should preferably be
and social rights of every person."(Argentina Mental
carried out outside the scope of hospitalization. In
Health Law, 2010, page 9) It can be seen how the
relation to the international issue, the creation of new
theoretical conception that underlies the Primary Health
asylums is prohibited. In turn, existing ones must be
Care practices of Mental Health, rests on a bio- psycho-
adapted to follow the principles set out in the Law,
social, where the psychic appears as parallel to the
until their definitive substitution by alternative
organism that suffers the consequences of the
devices: cohabitation houses, day hospitals, work
environment or external factors and biological factors.
cooperatives, socio-labor training centers, social
The National Mental Health Law has installed an
enterprises, homes and families substitutes.
indispensable public debate regarding the protection of
civic, social and cultural rights in the care of the mentally • In reference to the impact on Argentine law, it modifies
ill. In addition to its relevant symbolic dimension, the law the Civil Code by eliminating the concept of danger and
expresses a decided social will to transform a field of replacing it with that of a certain and imminent danger
practices that, furrowed by political tensions of very as a criterion for involuntary commitment. (Carpenter,
diverse type, has been raised highly refractory to change 2011) The main criticisms formulated to the Law of
and in which the violation of the rights has been Mental Health have pointed to the academic
historically naturalized. human rights of the people preparation of those who arrange the hospitalizations
assisted. One of the issues that has favored the new and externalities, to the imprecision in the definition of
paradigm in mental health is linked to the revision of the the object, to the risk of a definitive and premature
traditional assumptions of ethics applied to health from closing of the monovalent institutions, to the viability of
the emergence of a perspective based on the principles of the law and interdisciplinarity as a muddy practice of
autonomy, dignity and equity Social. scarce feasibility. On the contrary, in relation to valid
criticisms, it can be said that they put on the table the
For Carpintero (2011), the political context that problem (and challenge) of delimiting a professional
enables the enactment and enactment of the law is training that allows to establish a precise and
precisely that of the advance of the globalization of the consistent concern in each case, the problem of
market economy [12]. In this regard, the author points budgetary resources that become operative the law and
out that the high costs of hospitalization of large asylums the question of the importance of clinical specificity in
would be the primary driver of the recommendations of relation to the definition of the object of the Mental
international organizations such as WHO or PAHO on the Health Law. It is important to underline an affirmation
deinstitutionalization of mental health. The Right to the included in Article 3 of the Law, dedicated to the
Protection of Mental Health Law is the first legal norm definition of Mental Health. The statement to which I
that gives a national framework to the policies in the area. refer is the following: "It must be based on the
As Ana Hermosilla and Rocío Cataldo point out, "it presumption of capacity of all people." (National
inaugurates a period of changes, of revision of practices Mental Health Law, 2010) This idea is perhaps the main
and conceptions that, up to now, have supported the axis of the Law [14].

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A few years after the formulation of the Strategy and We consider important then to analyze what has
Plan of Action on Mental Health that the Ministers of happened in the history of public policies on mental
Health of the Americas approved in the Assembly of the health because even when there is widespread consensus
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO / WHO) of in the scientific community regarding the need to give
August 2009, and 6 years after enactment of the National such problems an integral, complex and focused on the
Mental Health Law, the field of Mental Health in Argentina historical-social dimension, the hegemonic orientation in
today has a multiplicity and heterogeneity. This speaks of the formation of human resources and the practice of
the fact that, although progress has been made with health services continues to be individualistic,
respect to legislation and with regard to the intentions of fragmented, reductionist and apart from the social. As a
reforming the care of those with subjective suffering, consequence of the primacy of this approach, assistance
there are evident shortcomings in the planning, programs are often organized according to a sectoral logic
management and formulation of programs. That in which the targeting of the recipients and the
optimizes, distribute and give coherence to the system. In fragmentation of actions are the most important, which is
addition, there is many times another big gap, which few expressed directly in the difficulty of coordinating
dare to jump. objectives, resources and actions between technical areas
that respond to different dependencies of the State
This is the one that opens between the formulation of apparatus itself. This fragmentation reproduces a
Mental Health policies and the demands of a clinic that segmented logic that hinders the articulation of the
supports the responses that professionals in the field offer practices that professionals perform in each of the
to subjective suffering. Another important point to place institutions included in these programs and reinforces
is the complex relationship established with the policies some limitations inherent to public policies, among which
and practices of Primary Health Care, that is, the the conception of users as recipients should be noted.
complexity of the relationships of those who manage, Liabilities of the assistance dispensed [15].
work, plan in Mental Health with those who do it from the
field of health. Health in general. We also observe that for It should be noted that the focus of psychology, our
the same diversity of disciplines, practices and problems profession, a discipline traditionally excluded from all the
that constitute the domain of Mental Health, it is forced to knowledge that has operated in the field of care of the
rehearse options of interdisciplinarity and disease, has unquestionable potential to add its
transdisciplinarity both when it comes to developing contribution from a perspective that highlights the
strategies, and when it comes to the creation of salutogenic potential of the individuals and communities
alternative devices to the already perimida practice of and not merely actions of assistance or repair of the
enclosure of the asylum. Finally, the time in which we live disease. We can place this contribution in the framework
has modified and expanded the landscape of demands to of what is currently called healthy public policy. In this
the mental health system, which merits from the public way, the central objective is to analyze and historicize the
health field the survey of new problems as well as the material and symbolic obstacles, and the different spaces
production of work tools to give effective answers (which of participation that limited, enabled and / or guaranteed
expected). the right to a comprehensive care of mental health care.

And as we have mentioned, it is from the perspective References

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