The Foundation it originated from the initiative of a group of professionals: David Clusa, Enric Falo, Daniel Garcia Tarafa, Ramón Martínez-Remacha, Lluís Mauri, Ada Ruiz and Angels Vives, who was the driving force and leader, members of the Board of the Collegiate Section of Psychiatrists of the Official College of Physicians of Barcelona (COMB), in post-Olympic Barcelona. We were in the last decade of the century, and Europe was experiencing profound socio-political changes with the disappearance of the USSR and the Iron Curtain, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Balkan wars. The agreements for the European Union were being signed, of which Spain was already a full member, creating a borderless space for European citizens and a single currency. The world had entered the post–Cold War era: economic liberalism, capitalism, and democracy were interchangeable, successful catch-all concepts. Asian countries, including China, were showing signs of economic appeal and market potential. South Africa was finally moving away from apartheid; Somalia was at war; and in Rwanda, the horror of horrors was unfolding.
In Spain, La General Health Law From 1986, full integration of mental health services into the general healthcare system was established, and responsibility for healthcare management shifted to the autonomous communities. In Catalonia, a Network of Public Use Services for Mental Health had been implemented as a result of a complex Psychiatric Reform, which was experienced with ambivalence: the care offered had increased, become universalized, and improved, but its inadequacy and precariousness were clear. Significant scientific-technical and intellectual developments allowed for a deeper understanding of the CNS; we were in the so-called Decade of the Brain, a highly publicized initiative by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health that promoted a new umbrella discipline, Neuroscience. Computing supported information processing and storage systems and was advancing global communication systems.
In this context, the group of professionals considered the need to think about the determinants of mental health and how to promote them; how mental suffering was understood and identified; what mental health care and support entailed; and who, how, and where it was or should be provided. It began with the necessity of opening up to multidisciplinary debate, keeping ethical criteria in mind for caregiving work, and also paying attention to the well-being of the professionals. Furthermore, it started with the aspiration to penetrate the realm of public policies.
Two important anniversaries concerning the conceptualization of health coincided in time. It was the 50th anniversary of the WHO's 1946 declaration: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” It was the 20th anniversary of the Tenth Congress of Doctors and Biologists of the Catalan Language, held in 1976, which defined health as “An autonomous, supportive, and joyful way of life.” The Ninth Congress had taken place in 1936, forty years prior.
With the ambition of working towards an updated conceptualization of mental health, the idea of organizing a Catalan Congress of Mental Health (CCSM) arose. The aim was to offer a space for thought with a broad, transdisciplinary, integrative, and mutually enriching vision to share this ambition, allowing for the diversity of the community to be heard and to participate. The participation of different stakeholders was needed: representatives of the professional diversity linked to care for mental health problems; and other professionals from the health sector, as well as from the sociocultural, educational, intellectual, and applied sciences fields; from philosophy and theoretical physics to urbanism and ecology, including individuals and families affected by specific mental health issues. This provided a range of complementary and insightful perspectives on complexity, going beyond the strict domain of mental health problem specialists.
In this way, the organization of preliminary, preparatory days for a first congress begins, involving 80 participants from diverse and multidisciplinary backgrounds, attempting to gather the maximum number of viewpoints, organized around four Working Groups. This initial group work marked the way to approach the task of preparing future congresses; with a method that allows the involvement of different professionals, even those working from distant paradigms, in the common search for answers to what is being asked, which in these first days was an approach to the concept of Mental Health (MH).
The Preliminary Sessions were celebrated at COMB on May 30 and 31, 1997 with the presentation by working group members of the content that had been debated in different discussion and exchange meetings between October 1996 and February 1997.
Four tables collected the focus of the working groups: Theoretical models in SM; Social fabric and care practices; The ethical dimension; Training, teaching, and research.
The proposal to modify the definition of health from the 10th Congress of Doctors and Biologists should be highlighted, in which the capacity for autonomy would include “mature forms of dependence”; solidarity “the recognition of difference“; and the joyful state ”a fluctuating state of well-being-ill-being within tolerable limits.".
Conferences Health culture, Garrison. Research and teaching in Mental Health in the countries and sectors of the fin-de-siècle Empire, J Tizón; Brain-Mind: Inferences on interconnections from current neuroscientific knowledge, F. Mora. The psychiatrist's identity crisis in relation to new managed care systems, J Guimón.
In these First Conference Sessions, the desire to rescue the memory of Dr. Emili Mira i Lopez and to pay tribute to him as a person deeply committed to democracy and as a competent professional, who even in his time demonstrated the multidimensional perspective from which health-related issues must be approached, was already evident.
From this point, the steering group of the 1st Catalan Congress of Mental Health, with the ambition of continuity, made a proposal for stable collaboration with other professional groups. An intercollegiate agreement was signed, which included the Official College of Physicians of Barcelona, the Official College of Registered Nurses of Barcelona, the Official College of Psychologists of Catalonia, and the College of Social Workers of Catalonia. In this way, the Catalan Mental Health Congress Platform was established to jointly organize the 1st Catalan Congress of Mental Health.
The 1st Catalan Congress of Mental Health – Emili Mira Memorial It was held at COMB on February 18, 19, and 20, 1999, with the motto “In health, we are all essential.”.
The Congress Foundation for Mental Health, was established in the year 2000 under the invaluable leadership of Mr. Agustí de Semir and with the participation of the four professional colleges that signed the agreement as Supporting Members.