ABSTRACT
Romanian psychiatric hospitals have functioned as places where families or the state have dumped people with developmental, intellectual, and cognitive disabilities. Romania's mental health system is dramatically different from what the author was familiar with in the United States. In Romania, mental health care is almost exclusively provided in large, state-run hospitals. This heavy reliance on institutionalized care in the Romanian system was inherited, with few major changes, from the state socialist era. The current problematic situation in Romania represents the intersection of institutionalized rather than community-based care combined with increasing socioeconomic instability in the context of post-socialist economic changes. The current problematic situation in Romania represents the intersection of institutionalized rather than community-based care combined with increasing socioeconomic instability in the context of post-socialist economic changes. In contrast, psychiatrists in Romania typically rely upon the tools at their disposal for treatment: institutionalization and psycho-pharmaceuticals.
