From Antonio Gramsci to Franco Basaglia: The Theory and Practice of the Italian Psychiatric Reform

Abstract

Cursory summaries of the intellectual and philosophical context of the Italian psychiatric reform movement have overemphasized its practical limitations while understating its conceptual framework. Emphasis on either theory or practice, not on theory and practice, has kept mental health policy stuck within Gertrude Stein's witty aphorism What history teaches is that history teaches. Modern psychiatric practice seems particularly prone to chronic repetition of the question What did we do this time that failed? This paper presents the sociopolitical concepts and psychiatric strategies underlying Western Europe's most radical psychiatric reform movement, Psichiatria Democratica. Little attention has been given to the important influence of Italy's major political theorist of this century, Antonio Gramsci, on the Italian reformers and their leader, Franco Basaglia. Understanding Gramsci's theory and the practices of Italian psychiatry can help us to evaluate and improve public mental health services in both Italy and elsewhere.