The study investigates policy level attempts to improve mental health care. It analyses the rationale of the proposals to improve Finnish mental health policy between 1964–2016. Such proposals have been presented in policy documents such as committee reports, working group memorandums, government bills and project reports. The most prominent examples of the improvement proposals are reducing psychiatric hospital care, increasing outpatient treatment, increasing the possibilities for mental health services users to work, emphasising the autonomy of the service users, and increasing the equal position of mental health care service users and other citizens.
The study seeks to find out what has been in the focus in reforming mental health care, how the people using mental health services have been perceived, and finally, what has been left unproblematised.
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Academic Dissertation to be presented, with the permission of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Helsinki, for public examination in lecture hall 12, University main building, on 22 September 2017, at 12 noon.