Radical Psychiatry, Social Movements and 1968

In the late 1960s and early 1970s mainstream psychiatric institutions, treatments and diagnostic categories came under attack. Ideas about madness and sanity were also central to the profusion on social movements that erupted around 1968 - how is madness defined? who creates definitions of mental illness and in whose interests? what models of normality, sanity or mental health is mental illness understood in relation to? if existing forms of psychiatric treatment are understood to be oppressive what alternative methods can be used? This course will explore the centrality of radical and anti-psychiatric theories and practices to other social movements of the era. Challenging normative ideas about mental health necessarily involved challenging normative ideas about race, gender and sexuality. This course will focus on primary materials from the period including: core theoretical texts (including works by RD Laing, Félix Guattari and Juliet Mitchell), films documenting radical psychiatric practices and counter-institutions, and pamphlets and other ephemera produced by activist groups engaged with radical psychiatric ideas and practices. Please quote at leas four of the uploaded material.  

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