[The sectorization of the psychiatric care in Leipzig: A social psychiatric reform project in the GDR].

Abstract

Prompted by the inhumane and insufficient care conditions, a reform movement began to emerge at the University Hospital Leipzig starting in the 1960s. In Germany as well as in Leipzig, psychiatric care was dominated by the imbalance between asylum and university psychiatry, characterized by hierarchy, a lack of cooperation, and separated areas of responsibility. In contrast, there existed an independent and poorly developed extramural care system. Starting in 1974, the Leipzig reform group reorganized the city's mental health care system based on the sector model, aiming to establish a community-based, low-barrier, and less hierarchical psychiatry. Sectorization meant introducing a territorial obligation to provide inpatient care and a reorganization of outpatient and inpatient structures. Although imperfect, the sectorization in Leipzig was an attempt to humanize psychiatric care and grant greater quality of life and self-determination to people with mental illnesses.