Making People Autonomous: A Sociological Analysis of the Uses of Contracts and Projects in the Psychiatric Care Institutions.

This article aims at describing the tensions arising from working on and with someone in psychiatry, in order to make this person more "autonomous". First, through the example of the recovery, it acknowledges, the normative horizon of what is considered today as "good care": a negotiation between partners, aiming at increasing the possibilities for everyone to follow their own lifestyle. It then seeks to describe how this definition of good care is endorsed and applied in two institutions (in Belgium and in France) hosting people with severe mental health issues where the care teams are using three words ("contract", "project" and "autonomy"). The article analyses the difficulties encountered while putting into practice these demanding ideals and shows how and to what end the care teams take action in defining the "good" projects and, in a more general way, what patients can or should expect from themselves and from their future.