The Man Who Closed the Asylums
By John Foot
By John Foot
By John Foot
By John Foot
Category: Domestic Politics | Psychology | Travel: Europe
Category: Domestic Politics | Psychology | Travel: Europe
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$29.95
Aug 01, 2023 | ISBN 9781784784164
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Sep 15, 2015 | ISBN 9781781689288
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$29.95
Aug 01, 2023 | ISBN 9781784784164
-
Sep 15, 2015 | ISBN 9781781689288
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Praise
âPeopled by a cast of extraordinary charactersâpatients, colleagues, friends and enemiesârevolving around the charismatic and now legendary psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, John Footâs sympathetic account de-mythologises the reform by uncovering little-known precedents, distancing Basaglia from anti-psychiatry and situating his work within Italian radical politics of the late 1960s. Indispensable reading for anyone interested in psychiatric reform.â
âHoward Caygill, author of On Resistance
âAn important work ⊠should put to rest the badly-informed, lazy narrative that still prevails to the effect that Franco Basaglia was an idealistâan âanti-psychiatristââwho, at a stroke, disempowered doctors to certify someone as insane with disastrous results.â
âAdrian C. Laing, author of R.D. Laing: A Biography
âThe anti-asylum movement in 1960s and â70s Italy forms one of the most fascinating episodes in western psychiatry. John Footâs richly documented and revealing study of this movement and its pioneer figure, the charismatic radical psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, adds immeasurably to our understanding of the troubled history of mental health care in modern times.â
âBarbara Taylor, author of The Last Asylum
âA brilliant historical reconstruction of the work and ideas of one of the worldâs leading exponents of critical psychiatry.â
âDavid Forgacs, author of Italyâs Margins
âIt is fashionable in some quarters to laugh at the radical left of the 1960s. The Man Who Closed the Asylums feels refreshing in that regardâas a portrait of imperfect people who had the passion and pragmatism to put an end to a brutal and broken system.â
âSarah Wise, Financial Times
âIn Italy, the literature on Basaglia tends towards either idealisation or demonisationâheâs considered either a secular saint or a dangerous radical. John Foot gives a much more rounded, and fair, portrait of a complicated, committed man.â
âTobias Jones, Guardian
âJohn Foot stresses throughout his exemplary account [that] myth and reality arenât easily separated in Basagliaâs story ⊠Foot restores a critical distance that makes it possible to present Basagliaâs achievements as part of a wider story. In Italy, it took more than one man to close the asylums.â
âMike Jay, London Review of Books
âA scholar steeped in the twists and turns of Italian history of the 20th century ⊠Foot has made wonderful use of [the materials of the Basaglia archive] ⊠exploring them through the lens of the politics and fractured nature of the country itself.â
âHelen Bynum, Times Higher Education
âBrings this diversity, richness and complexity to life in an exemplary fashion, illuminating all its different manifestations and contradictions ⊠A triumph of committed scholarship.â
âTimes Literary Supplement
âFootâs impassioned story reminds us that the future is neither immutable nor ordained, and that small groups of people in peripheral places can change.â
âNature
âHowever strong the spirit of 1968, it will not eradicate the institutional impulse from human societies.â
âPeter J. Leithart, First Things
âAn excellent bookâ
âMelissa Reynolds, Frugal Creativity