ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the mentally ill are one of many social groups in competition for space in the city. Part of the reason for environmental restrictiveness may be found in the particular social characteristics of the group in question. Why do patients released from hospital replicate their asylum ward in a downtown location? What is the interplay between social and spatial forces permitting the development of the ghetto? The answers to these questions lie in the theory of social reproduction and in the way space acts to mediate the reproduction of social relations. The chapter examines the notion of reproduction in the social formation. It discusses the actions of mental health professionals and of the community is shown to have significant impacts on mental health care. It discusses nature of the class relationship between professional and client, and dominant role of reproduction in this relationship; and secondly, the role of space in mediating the professional/client relationship.
