Brazilian anti-asylum movement
A movement for humanitarian psychiatric reform in Brazil.
The Brazilian anti-asylum movement is an organized effort by psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers to improve psychiatric public services. It seeks humanitarian reform and fights discrimination against mental patients through awareness events on university campuses and hospitals.
Quick Facts
- Celebration date
- May 18
- Founding event
- May 18, 1987, in Bauru, state of São Paulo
- Founding participants
- About 350 employees of Mental Health
- Key law
- Law 10216 of 2001 (Lei Paulo Delgado)
- Related reform
- Reforma Sanitária Brasileira (Brazilian Sanitary Reform)
- Related international figure
- Franco Basaglia
- Related international locations
- Gorizia and Trieste, Italy
Facts from the source article.
Origins
The movement emerged after a chain of worldwide political events and is celebrated on May 18. On May 18, 1987, about 350 Mental Health employees gathered in Bauru, state of São Paulo, to discuss changing the country's archaic mental health system. Its roots connect to the Brazilian Sanitary Reform, which produced the Unified Health System (SUS), and to deinstitutionalization in Gorizia and Trieste, Italy, led by Franco Basaglia in the 1960s.
Goals
The movement seeks psychiatric reform under Law 10216 of 2001 (Lei Paulo Delgado), which aims to shift from systematic hospitalization to a psychosocial approach with community and open services. It views public healthcare and mental health as a political and social process involving participants, institutions, and actions across territories. Treatment should be community-based, with patients protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The agenda challenges the belief that mental disorders are treated only with medication and institutionalization, campaigns against prejudice and discrimination, and emphasizes psychotherapy and dialogue. Stable patients are given freedom to transit in and out of institutions while sleeping at home.
Results
Mental health conditions in Brazil improved slightly, though psychiatric institutionalization continues and many hospitals have not adapted to new laws. A considerable number of asylums were transformed into Centers of Psychosocial Attention (CAPS).
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