| This time, Rivista proposes to address such topic within a specific framework: the relationship between hospital-based and community-based interventions in health care practices. It is interesting to notice that, since its birth in Europe, modern clinic has been constantly characterized by a tension between hospital and community: namely, between a model of care based on isolating the patient (and returning her/him to the social system once healthy again) on the one hand, and a model that builds on providing care inside the environment where the patient lives (starting from the assumption that such environment might represent a resource for the care process) on the other. In Italy, a trend towards the reduction of hospital-based treatments and the promotion of alternative ways of care - first of all home care - has been present in national health plans since the Eighties and is currently getting stronger. Similar trends appear on the international scene. Some examples: general practitioners come to play a central role in the management of health care plans and budgets in UK, after the recent health care reform; the quality of home care takes priority in the public debate on health care in the USA as a measure for preventing frequent hospital re-admissions. Such new emphasis on community care is connected to a longlasting and still impending crisis of the Welfare State as well as to higly important changes in social life over the last decades. The problem of chronicity is emblematic. Chronicity has become a preeminent feature of more and more forms of disease, disability and dependence. While, on the one hand, this is the result of great advances in medical sciences, on the other hand, chronicity has forced a paradigm shift: from medical care strictu sensu, to a more diversified system of care aimed at improving the quality of life also in human and social terms. The focus moves from clinical environments to social coexistence environments. The Issue intends to address such transformations from different angles. First of all: the 'hospital', on the one hand, stands for an institution as well as an apparently comprenhensive and clearly identifiable system of competences, actions and procedures. On the other hand, because of the plurality of actors, instances, competences and relationships that the 'community' includes, it becomes more complex to identify and fully comprehend such entity. Thus, we are interested in further understanding what community care means today, who works in it, and which practices belong to the community. Moreover: within the abovementioned trend, how does the role itself of caring and taking care change? How does the relationship between health care and social welfare, medical and social components, formal and informal competences, professional and family resources, public and private spheres, within care practices, change? Which new opportunities for social integration and risks of exclusion are emerging? We would like to invite scholars from different countries and disciplines (psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, psychoanalysis, medicine, psychiatry) to contribute to a reflection on the proposed themes - in order to explore their several boundaries, cultural frameworks, clinical and social implications - through theoretical essays, research studies and clinical experiences. Contributions will be published in Rivista di Psicologia Clinica N. 2-2015, which will be released online in December 2015. Papers must be written in English or in the author's native language with abstract in English. Citations and references should follow the APA style (6th edition). If you will accept our invitation as we hope, we ask you to send your contribution by 15th June 2015, through the online submission on the website. You are requested to register as author not only as reader. A member of the editorial board will contact you and will remain at your disposal for any further information. Best regards, Rivista di Psicologia Clinica |