Mental health: deinstitutionalization and the problem of citizenship

Abstract

This article considers how the issue of citizenship rights for people with serious mental problems and disorders has been constructed in recent Australian mental health policy discourse. In the first section of the paper a form of discourse analysis is employed to analyse the preferred meanings and representations that this discourse assigns to the issue of citizenship and human rights for people with serious mental health problems and disorders. The second section of the paper compares this official discourse on citizenship and mental health to other variants such as those found in medical-psychiatric discourse and in the discourse of the mental health movement(s). The paper concludes with comments regarding current prospects for extending citizenship rights to people who use mental health services.