Voces y Trayectorias: In Conversation with Benedetto Saraceno

Benedetto Saraceno is Secretary General of the Lisbon Institute for Global Mental Health and Gulbenkian Professor of Global Health at the University Nova of Lisbon, where he co-directs the International Master in Mental Health Policy and Services. He also heads the Steering Committee of the Gulbenkian Global Mental Health Platform and serves as Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Mental Health at the University of Geneva. From 1999 to 2010, Dr Saraceno was Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse at the World Health Organization (WHO), where he played a leading role in developing global mental health policies and strengthening community-based services worldwide. Before joining WHO, he worked in Trieste alongside Franco Basaglia, contributing to Italy’s groundbreaking process of psychiatric deinstitutionalisation. He later led the Laboratory of Epidemiology and Social Psychiatry at the Mario Negri Institute for Research in Milan. Dr Saraceno is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK) and a central figure in the international movement for mental health reform and rights-based approaches to care.