La chiusura degli OPG: quali prospettive terapeutiche?

Abstract

Closing down the OPGs (Judicial Psychiatric Hospitals) in March 2015 was a historical event given that such institutions existed in Italy from the 1930s and remained unchanged even after the abolition of mental asylums. The new structures that substitute them, the REMS (Residences with Security Measures), seem to still be in a project phase; shortly, the number of OPG patients could saturate them with repercussions on mental health centres. The author offers a historical overview of the concepts of imputability and the security measures underlying the OPG system. He then goes on to discuss the theory by which mentally ill offenders would not be held responsible and dangerous. In the light of recent  houghts deriving from Massimo Fagioli’s Birth Theory and his statements regarding the psychotherapy of interpersonal violence, this regulatory system can now be considered outdated, and it is now considered possible to cure these mentally ill offenders in an appropriate period of time and with specific methods.