Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Anti-psychiatry
Anti-psychiatry, sometimes spelled antipsychiatry, is a movement based on the view that psychiatric treatment can often be more damaging than helpful to patients. The term anti-psychiatry was coined in 1912, and the movement emerged in the 1960s, highlighting controversies about psychiatry. Objections include the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis, the questionable effectiveness and harm associated with psychiatric medications, the failure of psychiatry to demonstrate any disease treatment mechanism for psychiatric medication effects, and legal concerns about equal human rights and civil freedom being nullified by the presence of diagnosis. Historical critiques of psychiatry came to light after focus on the extreme harms associated with electroconvulsive therapy and insulin shock therapy.[failed verification] The term "anti-psychiatry" is in dispute and often used to dismiss all critics of psychiatry, many of whom agree that a specialized role of helper for people in emotional distress may at times be appropriate, and allow for individual choice around treatment decisions.
Beyond concerns about effectiveness, anti-psychiatry might question the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of psychotherapy and psychoactive medication, seeing them as shaped by social and political concerns rather than the autonomy and integrity of the individual mind. They may believe that "judgements on matters of sanity should be the prerogative of the philosophical mind", and that the mind should not be a medical concern. Some activists reject the psychiatric notion of mental illness. Anti-psychiatry considers psychiatry a coercive instrument of oppression due to an unequal power relationship between doctor, therapist, and patient or client, and a highly subjective diagnostic process. Involuntary commitment, which can be enforced legally through sectioning, is an important issue in the movement. When sectioned, involuntary treatment may also be legally enforced by the medical profession against the patient's will.
The decentralized movement has been active in various forms for two centuries. In the 1960s, there were many challenges to psychoanalysis and mainstream psychiatry, in which the very basis of psychiatric practice was characterized as repressive and controlling. Psychiatrists identified with the anti-psychiatry movement included Timothy Leary, R. D. Laing, Franco Basaglia, Theodore Lidz, Silvano Arieti, and David Cooper. Others involved were Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Erving Goffman. Cooper used the term "anti-psychiatry" in 1967, and wrote the book Psychiatry and Anti-psychiatry in 1971. The word Antipsychiatrie was already used in Germany in 1904. Thomas Szasz introduced the idea of mental illness being a myth in the book The Myth of Mental Illness (1961). However, his literature actually very clearly states that he was directly undermined by the movement led by David Cooper (1931–1986) and that Cooper sought to replace psychiatry with his own brand of it. Giorgio Antonucci, who advocated a non-psychiatric approach to psychological suffering, did not consider himself to be part of the antipsychiatric movement. His position is represented by "the non-psychiatric thinking, which considers psychiatry an ideology devoid of scientific content, a non-knowledge, whose aim is to annihilate people instead of trying to understand the difficulties of life, both individual and social, and then to defend people, change society, and create a truly new culture". Antonucci introduced the definition of psychiatry as a prejudice in the book I pregiudizi e la conoscenza critica alla psichiatria (1986).
The movement continues to influence thinking about psychiatry and psychology, both within and outside of those fields, particularly in terms of the relationship between providers of treatment and those receiving it. Contemporary issues include freedom versus coercion, nature versus nurture, and the right to be different.
Critics of antipsychiatry from within psychiatry itself object to the underlying principle that psychiatry is harmful, although they usually accept that there are issues that need addressing. Medical professionals often consider anti-psychiatry movements to be promoting mental illness denial, and some consider their claims to be comparable to conspiracy theories.
The first widespread challenge to the prevailing medical approach in Western countries occurred in the late 18th century. Part of the progressive Age of Enlightenment, a "moral treatment" movement challenged the harsh, pessimistic, somatic (body-based) and restraint-based approaches that prevailed in the system of hospitals and "madhouses" for people considered mentally disturbed, who were generally seen as wild animals without reason. Alternatives were developed, led in different regions by ex-patient staff, physicians themselves in some cases, and religious and lay philanthropists. This "moral treatment" was seen as pioneering more humane psychological and social approaches, whether or not in medical settings; however, it also involved some use of physical restraints, threats of punishment, and personal and social methods of control. As it became the establishment approach in the 19th century, opposition to its negative aspects also grew.
According to Michel Foucault, there was a shift in the perception of madness, whereby it came to be seen as less about delusion, i.e. disturbed judgment about the truth, than about a disorder of regular, normal behavior or will. Foucault argued that, prior to this, doctors could often prescribe travel, rest, walking, retirement and generally engaging with nature, seen as the visible form of truth, as a means to break with artificialities of the world (and therefore delusions). Another form of treatment involved nature's opposite, the theater, where the patient's madness was acted out for them in such a way that the delusion would reveal itself to the patient.
Thus the most prominent therapeutic technique became to confront patients with a healthy sound will and orthodox passions, ideally embodied by the physician.[citation needed] The "cure" involved a process of opposition, of struggle and domination, of the patient's troubled will by the healthy will of the physician. It was thought the confrontation would lead not only to bring the illness into broad daylight by its resistance, but also to the victory of the sound will and the renunciation of the disturbed will. We must apply a perturbing method, to break the spasm by means of the spasm.... We must subjugate the whole character of some patients, subdue their transports, break their pride, while we must stimulate and encourage the others (Esquirol, J. E. D., 1816). Foucault also argued that the increasing internment of the "mentally ill" (the development of more and bigger asylums) had become necessary not just for diagnosis and classification but because an enclosed place became a requirement for a treatment that was now understood as primarily the contest of wills, a question of submission and victory.
Hub AI
Anti-psychiatry AI simulator
(@Anti-psychiatry_simulator)
Anti-psychiatry
Anti-psychiatry, sometimes spelled antipsychiatry, is a movement based on the view that psychiatric treatment can often be more damaging than helpful to patients. The term anti-psychiatry was coined in 1912, and the movement emerged in the 1960s, highlighting controversies about psychiatry. Objections include the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis, the questionable effectiveness and harm associated with psychiatric medications, the failure of psychiatry to demonstrate any disease treatment mechanism for psychiatric medication effects, and legal concerns about equal human rights and civil freedom being nullified by the presence of diagnosis. Historical critiques of psychiatry came to light after focus on the extreme harms associated with electroconvulsive therapy and insulin shock therapy.[failed verification] The term "anti-psychiatry" is in dispute and often used to dismiss all critics of psychiatry, many of whom agree that a specialized role of helper for people in emotional distress may at times be appropriate, and allow for individual choice around treatment decisions.
Beyond concerns about effectiveness, anti-psychiatry might question the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of psychotherapy and psychoactive medication, seeing them as shaped by social and political concerns rather than the autonomy and integrity of the individual mind. They may believe that "judgements on matters of sanity should be the prerogative of the philosophical mind", and that the mind should not be a medical concern. Some activists reject the psychiatric notion of mental illness. Anti-psychiatry considers psychiatry a coercive instrument of oppression due to an unequal power relationship between doctor, therapist, and patient or client, and a highly subjective diagnostic process. Involuntary commitment, which can be enforced legally through sectioning, is an important issue in the movement. When sectioned, involuntary treatment may also be legally enforced by the medical profession against the patient's will.
The decentralized movement has been active in various forms for two centuries. In the 1960s, there were many challenges to psychoanalysis and mainstream psychiatry, in which the very basis of psychiatric practice was characterized as repressive and controlling. Psychiatrists identified with the anti-psychiatry movement included Timothy Leary, R. D. Laing, Franco Basaglia, Theodore Lidz, Silvano Arieti, and David Cooper. Others involved were Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Erving Goffman. Cooper used the term "anti-psychiatry" in 1967, and wrote the book Psychiatry and Anti-psychiatry in 1971. The word Antipsychiatrie was already used in Germany in 1904. Thomas Szasz introduced the idea of mental illness being a myth in the book The Myth of Mental Illness (1961). However, his literature actually very clearly states that he was directly undermined by the movement led by David Cooper (1931–1986) and that Cooper sought to replace psychiatry with his own brand of it. Giorgio Antonucci, who advocated a non-psychiatric approach to psychological suffering, did not consider himself to be part of the antipsychiatric movement. His position is represented by "the non-psychiatric thinking, which considers psychiatry an ideology devoid of scientific content, a non-knowledge, whose aim is to annihilate people instead of trying to understand the difficulties of life, both individual and social, and then to defend people, change society, and create a truly new culture". Antonucci introduced the definition of psychiatry as a prejudice in the book I pregiudizi e la conoscenza critica alla psichiatria (1986).
The movement continues to influence thinking about psychiatry and psychology, both within and outside of those fields, particularly in terms of the relationship between providers of treatment and those receiving it. Contemporary issues include freedom versus coercion, nature versus nurture, and the right to be different.
Critics of antipsychiatry from within psychiatry itself object to the underlying principle that psychiatry is harmful, although they usually accept that there are issues that need addressing. Medical professionals often consider anti-psychiatry movements to be promoting mental illness denial, and some consider their claims to be comparable to conspiracy theories.
The first widespread challenge to the prevailing medical approach in Western countries occurred in the late 18th century. Part of the progressive Age of Enlightenment, a "moral treatment" movement challenged the harsh, pessimistic, somatic (body-based) and restraint-based approaches that prevailed in the system of hospitals and "madhouses" for people considered mentally disturbed, who were generally seen as wild animals without reason. Alternatives were developed, led in different regions by ex-patient staff, physicians themselves in some cases, and religious and lay philanthropists. This "moral treatment" was seen as pioneering more humane psychological and social approaches, whether or not in medical settings; however, it also involved some use of physical restraints, threats of punishment, and personal and social methods of control. As it became the establishment approach in the 19th century, opposition to its negative aspects also grew.
According to Michel Foucault, there was a shift in the perception of madness, whereby it came to be seen as less about delusion, i.e. disturbed judgment about the truth, than about a disorder of regular, normal behavior or will. Foucault argued that, prior to this, doctors could often prescribe travel, rest, walking, retirement and generally engaging with nature, seen as the visible form of truth, as a means to break with artificialities of the world (and therefore delusions). Another form of treatment involved nature's opposite, the theater, where the patient's madness was acted out for them in such a way that the delusion would reveal itself to the patient.
Thus the most prominent therapeutic technique became to confront patients with a healthy sound will and orthodox passions, ideally embodied by the physician.[citation needed] The "cure" involved a process of opposition, of struggle and domination, of the patient's troubled will by the healthy will of the physician. It was thought the confrontation would lead not only to bring the illness into broad daylight by its resistance, but also to the victory of the sound will and the renunciation of the disturbed will. We must apply a perturbing method, to break the spasm by means of the spasm.... We must subjugate the whole character of some patients, subdue their transports, break their pride, while we must stimulate and encourage the others (Esquirol, J. E. D., 1816). Foucault also argued that the increasing internment of the "mentally ill" (the development of more and bigger asylums) had become necessary not just for diagnosis and classification but because an enclosed place became a requirement for a treatment that was now understood as primarily the contest of wills, a question of submission and victory.