tangible but important attitudes of the staff. There is a commitment to a community based psychiatry among both the planners and the practitioners that goes far beyond the narrow concerns of closing down an asylum. The most obvious result of a new flexibility among staff is the breaking down of formal barriers between them. In a small community based institution the distinction among doctor, psychologist, nurse, and social worker becomes blurred. At times in the centres in Trieste the distinction between staff and patients becomes blurred. Interestingly, this observation is accepted with pride in Italy but often with howls of derision in this country. The old asylum in Trieste, as elsewhere in Italy, still exists. Instead of being sold off, however, as it surely would be in this country, it now houses work cooperatives, university buildings, and a creche and is the site of weekly discos and film shows. In fact, during the summer the place to be for young Triestinans is the "Ex-OPP" (expsychiatric hospital). The whole community is in effect being brought into the mental health centre as well as the patients being discharged from it. The small mental health centres mentioned in the news item function well as drop in centres, day centres, and outpatient clinics at one and the same time. In addition, the boundary between the mental health centre and the group homes becomes indistinct as the staff move freely between both. Thus nurses are attached to a centre, and how many nurses need to be actually working with patients in the homes is decided daily. In Trieste closure of the hospital has resulted in more and not fewer facilities. There are many deficiencies in Italy. There is no formal rehabilitation service and no occupational therapy. It is surely churlish, however, to concentrate only on what is lacking and to ignore the benefits stimulated by Law 180. In Trieste the psychiatric service sees the need to take the community forward with it. The point is that the professionals as well as the patients have been liberated from the hospital. On close questioning the Italians will admit that it is not that the psychiatric hospitals have closed but that their hold on the patients has been broken (K Jones, personal communication). It is the staff as well as the patients who have been deinstitutionalised.