PATER: An Integrative Psychotherapy Program for Socio-Economically Deprived People in Argentina

One of the main challenges in the field of psychotherapy is to reach people in need, especially underserved populations that do not have access to psychological services. Scaling psychotherapy interventions broadly across societies requires delineating an appropriate model and structure to implement care. Living marginalized is a negative predictor of poor mental health, and in turn poor mental health is a negative predictor of breaking the cycle of poverty and mental dysfunction. In this article we present PATER, a communitarian program that was been developed in Argentina 23 years ago, seeking to resist the impact of marginalization on people with scarce economic resources living with mental illness in Buenos Aires, Argentina. PATER provides an integrative psychotherapy program that has become an institutional flagship of the AigI Foundation. This article aims to describe the principles in which this communitarian program is based, to outline the structure of the model of care, and to map the future challenges in order to further expand an initiative that so far has reached around 3000 people in need.