The spatial and temporal framework of the normal and the pathological in social psychiatry.

Abstract

During the last four decades, parallel to the strategic and practical innovations that have occurred in social psychiatry, the concepts of the normal and the pathological have changed. As the normal and the pathological are determined and recognisable in both the spatial and the temporal framework, a change in these concepts can be assessed by tracing the shifts in their above mentioned fundamental dimensions. The spreading of the ideas and the practice of the community-centred psychiatry has brought about the greatest difficulties in defining the normal and the pathological.