The paper analyzes the situation of psychiatric reform after three decades of development in Spain. The achievements and failures are reviewed and the degree of implementation of the community model and public health, that originally inspired the process, is examinated. It tries to explain the reasons for care, policies and training deficiencies. The strengths are: the great development of alternative resources, and the loss of hegemony of the Psychiatric Hospital; and the threats: the changes in the management of the social and health services, the increasing privatization of services, the theoretical impoverishment and the changes in the demand of the population.
psychiatric reform; welfare policies; public health care; mental health; community model