Chaosophy - autonomous learning

5
GUERRILLA IN PSYCHIATRY:
F
LIA
A war of liberation, waged for ten years to overthrow the traditional
institution is presented to us in terms of militant struggle, in
a literary fortnightly containing recorded accounts, book reviews,
discussions, journal extracts, personal opinions, and articles. And it
is done without the least bit of pedantry. There is straightaway a
violent refusal of all scientific pseudo neutrality in this domain
which is, for the authors, eminently political.
It all started in 1961. Under the impetus of Dr. Basaglia, the
new direction of the hospital brought about "a sudden rupture of
working solidarity" among the personnel and the breaking away of
an "avant-garde" which refused to any longer fulfill the "mandate
of the cure and of surveillance" entrusted to them by a repressive
society. Step by step all services were to be opened: general meetings
would be open to the institutionalized, communications, the organization
of leisure, and sociotherapy would be intensified ...
At first "nobody would open their mouth"; but then there was
a thaw, and intense interest spread to all the departments. The
hospital held over fifty meetings a week, spectacular improvements
were made, and patients were sent home after 10, 15, or 20 years
in the hospital.
Basaglia and Minguzzi then decided to undertake a detailed
investigation into similar experiments in institutional psychotherapy
in France and therapeutic communities in England (i.e. at
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