JOSEP CLUSA MATINERO
IN MEMORIAM
Sometimes, sitting down, after the very long day,
On the long road, I tempt myself and almost recognize you.
The other pain
Vicente Aleixandre
(Poem selected by David Clusa)
Dr. Josep Clusa i Matinero (1934-2013), a tireless worker, was a good, honest Mental Health professional, passionate about his profession, convinced of the dignity of the person above their condition as a mentally ill patient.
Together with some colleagues from the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, he initiated a movement in Barcelona, already in the late sixties, to dignify the care of people affected by chronic psychotic processes. He led a large group of professionals who worked on the process of forced deinstitutionalization of the Mental Institute.
At that time, men and women with chronic psychotic conditions lived confined in the psychiatric institution, eliminated from social life, without a closet to store their personal belongings, without identification, and without any interaction with people outside the institution.
He fought tenaciously to open the psychiatric institution to the neighborhood. He promoted interaction with people and civic institutions, fostering acceptance and integration by neighbors and citizens. They won the battle, not without casualties on their side. Today, this experience is held up as an example to explain the process—still unfinished in our environment—of dismantling the "madhouse" organization of psychiatric care and the development of sector-based, community psychiatry.
His approach to the mentally ill was at all times rehabilitative and dignifying of their citizenship. His concern and capacity for analyzing the social factors that contribute to people's psychological illness have always been lucid and profound. This great ability to approach the most human aspects of patients and their families also led him to train as a psychoanalyst at the Spanish Society of Psychoanalysis, belonging to the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). From there, he consistently fostered and participated in the debate on the application of psychoanalytic knowledge to psychiatric care practice. Evidence of this is his article Psychoanalysis and psychiatric assistance (Catalan Journal of Psychoanalysis, 1990, volume II, no. 1 pp. 121-126).
Curious by nature, he was always attentive to scientific, political, technical, and cultural contributions that could lead to better patient care; he understood it as one more facet, the one he chose, of human development.
He was concerned with the (psycho)therapeutic aspects of the caregiver-patient relationship. For this reason, he promoted training, supervision, and emotional support projects for the various professionals involved in clinical assistance. In recent years, he also contributed to organizing training courses on psychosis and family at the Institut d’Estudis de la Salut (IES) of the Generalitat de Catalunya, along with Jaume Aguilar, David Clusa, Oriol Esteve, Lluis Isern, and under the supervision of Dr. Pere Folch.
He was president of the Fundació Congrés Català de Salut Mental for 8 years and, until his passing, he strongly promoted knowledge of various holistic mental health care models.
I have had the privilege and good fortune to enjoy a great friendship with him and his family for many years. Josep Clusa has always known how to take care of the people close to him: his family, his friends, colleagues, and patients. His professional and human legacy lives on through his family as well.
Having been able to connect with your conception of a humanistic psychiatry, working with a pioneer of community and rehabilitative psychiatry has been an honor for me and, of course, for the many patients you have helped so much.
Jaume Aguilar
Psychiatrist.
Psychoanalyst of the Spanish Psychoanalytic Society and the IPA.