Un’esperienza in un dipartimento di salute mentale organizzato secondo la cultura dell’antipsichiatria

Abstract

This article is about the author’s experience working as a psychiatrist in the Mental Health Department of Aversa, organised by medical directors following the indications of F. Basaglia, who had the leading role in the Italian antipsychiatry movement. Between 2004 and 2005 she visited all the department structures like the outpatient clinics (CSM), the day hospitals, the halfway houses, then she worked both in a CSM and the psychiatric department (SPDC) of Aversa General Hospital. This work experience gave the author the direct opportunity of becoming familiar with how psychiatric diseases are managed and to understand clearly to what extent this movement is far from psychiatry, as seen in the fact that the diagnosis of a mental illness is considered a “disorder” needing assistance rather than a “disease” needing therapy. Finally she reflects on the fact that this culture causes serious obstacles for the development of psychiatric knowledge, determining the annulment of all possibilities of research into psychiatric diseases and their unconscious origin, thus eliminating every opportunity for a cure.