[Social history of open care of the mentally ill--from the municipal asylum to social psychiatric care].
Outpatient psychiatric care linked to a hospital or institution is as old as psychiatry defining itself as a science. During the time of the Liberal Movement in Germany and the various revolutions that took place in several European countries (including Austria and various German states) in 1848, people were full of ideas and sociorevolutionary projects. It was then that they became conscious of the need to meet mentally ill persons in their own environment in order to help them in an adequate manner. Griesinger described in great detail such work as envisaged by him for his projected "municipal asylum" or "city asylum". However, all efforts in this direction were quashed in 1868 by a majority decision on the part of psychiatrics in favour of large-scale lunatic asyluma located far away from the densely populated areas. At the turn of the century, social awareness again began to grow; the asylums were overcrowded; and costs had risen tremendously. This resulted in building up a non-institutionalised "open service and care" for the insane. On the one hand, it was an outpatient care system in close co-operation with the asylum, i.e. the patients were looked up in their homes (Erlangen Model), whereas in several big cities the community Public Health Office was responsible for such psychiatric care (Gelsenkirchen Model). In the German Republic that existed from 1919 to 1933, "open" psychiatric care was extended, and the psychiatrist who advocated it were gradually drawn into a maelstrom of a sociodarwinistic type of racialism.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
D003688:Deinstitutionalization / Q000266:history*; D005858:Germany; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric / Q000266:history; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000266:history*
Zur Sozialgeschichte der "Offenen Irren-Fürsorge"--Vom Stadtasyl zum Sozialpsychiatrischen Dienst.