Approaching critical mass: The impasses at the heart of the recovery movement

I want to dispense a new term to conceptualise the poison wreaking so much havoc on community mental health. The word: neo-institutionalisation. Neo-institutionalisation must be stopped at all costs. Neo-institutionalisation is the hazardously complex systematic formula or medical value justifying a patient’s need for mental health treatment. As stated under the community mental health model, clinicians explain the need for a person 's treatment every day to enrol them into therapy or mental health service. This formula, or medical value, is inputted into some form for insurance reimbursement or into an application for government services.  Neo-institutionalisation evolved and came into being from the clumsy rollout of deinstitutionalisation policies in the 1970s and 1980s (Larsen & Gornitzka, 1995). The moment deinstitutionalisation stalled, the moment the shadows of neo-institutionalisation passed over the mental health community, and it has been looming over our heads ever since. The crisis is only now realised because clinicians are finally asking: Why are not some people recovering? And why do some people keep falling out of the system? The status of community mental health treatment continues to lose ground (Ogwuche et al., 2020). The number of questions is rising around poor patient outcomes. At the root of it, the vision that change-makers had when community mental health came into being is tired, and the frame which is masking the issues within is breaking, if not already broken. The term community mental health evolved from the vacuum left in the wake of deinstitutionalisation. Nevertheless, like most vacuums, impurities and filth crept into the works, mucking up what could have been a new era for mental health. Instead, these impurities continue to stifle long-term progress.