Social Perspectives on Psychiatry for the Person

Abstract

Today, in a social and societal perspective, mental ill health and stress-related community syndromes involving disorder and death can be identified and their dysfunctional consequences for societies as well as for the individuals living in and exposed to them become clearly evident.Thus, a societal syndrome of stress related morbidity and mortality including increasing mortality figures due to suicide, violence and homicide not only leads to socio-economic consequences, but also afflicts the very fabric of a society, its moral and ethical values and its social structure. This was dramatically exemplified in the drop in life expectancy, the premature death and the depopulation phenomena observed in Europe’s transitional societies during the nineties.Here, the challenge is to identify societal settings and individual life courses that support resilience and salutogenesis, but also pathogenic factors as helplessness, loss of existential cohesion, social disruption and violations regarding integrity, autonomy, dignity and identity. Population directed approaches are demanded