Abstract

This study is an ethnographic exploration of deinstitutionalised schizophrenics in Montreal. The focus of this paper is how schizophrenics and their primary caregivers have come to understand and reinterpret schizophrenia in an era of post-institutionalisation. The emphasis of this paper is on how Quebec's virage ambulatoire has seen the shift in responsibility for the psychiatrically ill from psychiatrists to community care workers and the schizophrenics themselves. In addition to the historical development of institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation this work includes a description of the places schizophrenics have come to rely upon in the wake of closed asylum beds. Other issues to be addressed are; the conflict between objective disease and subjective illness; agency, psychiatric non-compliance and social non-conformity; concepts of wellness and chronic illness; and the utility of a psychiatric diagnosis in augmenting benefits and accessing services. Because of the exploratory nature of the study, conclusions are formulated in terms of further work to be accomplished and different epistemological tools to be developed to better understand the situation.