Argentina’s Mental Health Law: Sociocultural Questions Regarding the Normative Framework

Abstract

This chapter presents a critical reading of the legal treatment given to the mentally ill in Argentina based on a sociocultural analysis, but not without an indispensable hermeneutical examination of the law, which has been in place for a little over a decade. Recovering the thesis of John Rawls, the work especially looks at those who possess factors that exclude them from the world of the “normal.” These “abnormal” human beings, called padecientes mentales (mental health sufferers) since the passage of the National Law on Mental Health and Addictions in 2010 as Act 26657, nevertheless continue to be objects of social disciplinary power. A power that, although somewhat diminished by the current law, makes it necessary for broad protection to be directed at subjects who undergo a double stigmatization, as is the case of madwomen, among others. From this perspective, a somewhat biased response in the regulatory norms can be observed, a circumstance that becomes particularly clear in relation to gender, where the article will focus its attention.