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The aim of this paper is to provide a description of a significant process which takes place during a first psychiatric hospitalization and to shed some light on its context. This process involves a transformation of an individual considered mentally disturbed into a psychiatric patient which affects the person's identity. The ‘person’ becomes a ‘psychiatric patient’. Although it is self-evident that a patient never stops being a person, the context of the first hospitalization merits attention as it is the time when the patient is in most danger of being objectified and depersonalized. The paper describes a study of forty-six patients hospitalized for the first time on a psychiatric ward and their seventy-five parents. Their narratives from the beginning and the end of stay in hospital were compared and the language used during the introductory consultation and discharge consultation analysed. In this process an important role is played by patients' parents. The parents' narratives are seen to change in a direction of acceptance but at the same time a process of stigmatization is apparent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]