Imbalance Mental Health Care System and Social Exclusion

Abstract

This academic article aims to demonstrate the social exclusion that occurs in imbalanced mental health care system. Since 1970, global mental health policies have given precedence to community services, which need to be altered in terms of structures of decentralization and their philosophical foundation. In Thailand, even the large psychiatric hospitals have not been reduced in quantity and size, but mental health work in the community and primary health care integration with mental health services have increased, which make Thailand’s mental health care system activated. This article suggests that even though mental health services in communities have improved, the overall mental health care system in Thailand is still based on hospitals, based on old-fashioned ideas and mindsets towards the imbalanced mental health care system. This system, driven by modern psychiatry concepts, allows communities to become a part of psychiatric institutions, but has not aligned itself with the mindsets which exist within these communities. It has created disparities in treatment and employment; and also brought about social exclusion, a fundamental problem facing people who experience psychiatric disorders living in a social context in which bio-medicine is authoritative.