[Where are the limits? From institution to deinstitutionalization exemplified in Saarland].

In 1998, the 1876 founded "preussische Provinzialirrenanstalt", a large asylum in Merzig (Germany), was closed down. Instead several psychiatric departments were founded in the rural county ("Bundesland"). On the asylum's former area in Merzig a new and modern general hospital including a psychiatric department was established. The present article will show up the former psychiatric hospital's genuine working fields, treating violent, self-harming and mental ill people needing help. It will describe in a differentiating way how the new services for the different groups of mental ill persons run: Decentralized general psychiatric care in defined regional areas (without forensic patients), central treatment for the forensic patients, regional care for people with mental retardation. In completion of this network there exist regional solutions for the themes "living in a own home", "Working and occupation" and "day-structuring". In conclusion, deinstitutionalization will not have any limits, despite of a few exceptions, if the limits of institutional thinking can be overcome.