Epistemological axes of anti-psychiatry: the influence of Sartre's Existencialism

Abstract

The anti-psychiatric movement, which started around the 1950's, was responsible for the extensive questioning of the psychiatric model for understanding and treating madness, especially in Europe and the United States. The movement had a central role in the creation of new models for dealing with mental health, as it criticized the concept of "mental disease", questioning the treatment models based on psychiatric hospitals, which were considered to produce violence and exclusion, besides not providing effective patient's recovery and re-entry in society. This paper discusses the influence Sartre's existentialism currently has on the issue of madness. The Sartrian philosophy - which is based on the concept of freedom as a human condition par excellence - has supported the understanding of psychopathology as a process that occurs within the relations of the subject in his/her socio-historical context, specially in the family relations; as opposed to the notion of morbid entity, characterized by its organicity, which guide the psychiatric thesis. Reanalyzing the epistemological roots of anti-psychiatric movement is an important mean of stimulating the essential discussion regarding the current contradictions between theory and practice in the area of mental health.