[Sponsorship by a peer and recovery for persons suffering of a severe psychotic condition].

For people with a mental health disorder, peer support (peer in the sense of people having recovered from such a disorder) is a great therapeutic value. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) were the first to show this therapeutic value. Their approach has several elements of which, aside from the "meetings" and the program of the "12 steps," a major element is the sponsorship of an individual by a peer.

[A mental health hygiene experiment: the case of Les Pinceaux d'Or].

Many research, notably that of Gene Cohen (2007), have shown positive impact of artistic activities for seniors. In 2006 in Quebec City, three professional painters have created a none lucrative organization called Les Pinceaux d'Or (The Golden Brushes). Its mission is to create a positive experience of painting learning in elderly needing persons.

[From the École Gamelin to the Rivière-des-Prairies Hospital: from scandals to its restoration].

The history of the Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies from its origins up to today is like the history of psychiatric institutions in French Canada: it constitutes a condensed of nearly 80 years: evolution marked by alternating generous initiatives and regrettable events if not scandals with nevertheless a recent successful evolution in its participation within the Institut universitaire en santé de Montréal. From the institutional presented case, this story invites us to keep in mind on the vulnerability of the psychiatric institutions to the perversion of its innovations.

[What is the future of the Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital?].

Most of the time, a government manages in order to keep the public support and tries to make others look responsible for the difficulties generated by his inertia. The history of various changes in the transformation of of the Hôpital Saint-Jean-de-Dieu to the Hôpital Louis-Hippolyte-Lafontaine had led to three administrative guardianships illustrates this, if we consider that the first one avoid such name. This merely about the events that led from the first one to the second guardianship.

Shared and specific susceptibility loci for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: a dense genome scan in Eastern Quebec families.

The goal of this study was to identify susceptibility loci shared by schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BP), or specific to each. To this end, we performed a dense genome scan in a first sample of 21 multigenerational families of Eastern Quebec affected by SZ, BP or both (N=480 family members). This probably constitutes the first genome scan of SZ and BP that used the same ascertainment, statistical and molecular methods for the concurrent study of the two disorders.