[SPS Conference on traineeship - 9 July 2010] - The psychological relationship with mentally ill patients in the residential and semi-residential facilities of the Department of Mental Health. Traineeship experience.

Abstract

The authors examine the role of psychology in the Mental Health Services, especially as concerns crisis intervention and rehabilitation. Practical traineeship experiences in residential and semi-residential facilities in Rome are discussed. A differentiation is made between “crisis” and “critical event”. The former is seen as a breakdown in the pact of living together implicitly shared in a context and not  seen necessarily as the fault of the single individual; the psychiatric crisis, in this sense, raises questions from the patients and their families to the Mental Health Services. The critical event is a psychosocial construct that places the crisis in the system of relationships and of involvements. Mental illness is therefore represented as the product and generator of critical events to be examined and explored so as to identify possible individual developments following the break, set in contexts.