A Portuguese dream for mental health

There is a sad story behind Casa Alba, of a wealthy family who have realised the limitations of mainstream mental health care, and are trying to set up one of the most progressive services in the country - from scratch.

Casa Alba is an ultra-modern building in the gentle hills a few miles outside Estremoz, for residents with severe psychotic conditions. They are using therapeutic community methods, but also traditional psychiatry: they are not of the Soteria inclination.

One of the purposes of the foundation behind all this is to disseminate the best progressive practice in mental health - so they hold a biennial conference: which was called 'The Intervention Triangle' on this occasion: see http://congress2016.fundacaords.org for details.

José Romão de Sousa

Conventos dos Congregados, Estremoz