Community living : metaphorical institutionalisation for people with a mental illness

Contemporary positions argue that the best place for people with a mental illness to be treated is in the community and this is where 98% of people with a mental illness currently reside. This relocation from institution to community happened as a result of the deinstitutionalisation process that occurred in Australia largely in the 1980s and during the 1990s in Queensland. This change to the locus of care was a major shift in policy and treatment of persons who have a mental illness. The move to living and caring for people with a mental illness in community settings was heralded by many as a positive major reform. This paper offers an alternative position, that of the consumers, and gives voice to the mostly silent people who live daily with the consequences of such policy. Drawing upon the works of Erving Goffman, this paper analyses whether community living is the best thing for people with a mental illness, or whether the type of community in which they live, is, in many ways, an extension of what Goffman was describing some four decades ago.