Representations of Elderly with Mental Health Problems Held By Psychosocial Practitioners from Community and Institutional Settings

Abstract

SUMMARY This article aims to clarify crucial issues pertaining to community and institution-based psychosocial care provided to elders suffering from mental health problems, and to the role of professional and lay systems of beliefs—i.e., representations—in this area of intervention. First, we review epidemiological, clinical, and evaluative data assessing the prevalence of mental health problems (both situational or transitional distress and severe mental health problems, with a special emphasis on the latter) among persons aged 65 and older, the specific situations and needs of this population, and the services provided to them. We then examine three promising and interrelated trends in psychosocial intervention aimed at seniors with mental health problems, that is, practices oriented toward recovery, empowerment, and social integration. Finally, we tackle the cumulative impacts of social representations of aging and the aged and of mental illness and the mentally ill, and how they can impede the implementation of interventions, services and programs based on recovery, empowerment and social integration approaches.