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Antipsychiatry: The Mid-twentieth Century Era (1960–1980)

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The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences

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Abstract

The antipsychiatry movement of the 1960s continues to attract analysis and commentary. Its story has been told in memoirs, biographies, and oral histories; it has undergone scholarly scrutiny; it has been the subject of newspaper articles and documentaries; it has been portrayed in films, novels, and plays; and it has lent itself to a great deal of mythologizing. Its legacy continues to be contested. For some commentators, it represents a period when mainstream psychiatry was triumphantly revealed as an authoritarian arm of the state. Further, the writings of antipsychiatrists, in this view, eloquently and courageously uncovered the hypocrisies and iniquities of Western society. For others, the antipsychiatrist movement was a temporary and rather ineffective protest that was very much a product of its time. Its leading lights put forward a highly romanticized view of madness which proposed that the mentally ill should remain untreated, a stance, according to this view, that was morally and clinically indefensible. More recently, historians have sought to provide a more nuanced picture which takes account of both not only the idealism of the movement, but also its failings. This chapter examines the key players in the movement: RD Laing, David Cooper, and their colleagues; Thomas Szasz; Erving Goffman; Michel Foucault; and Franco Basaglia. It concludes by assessing the significance and legacy of the antipsychiatry movement, and the reasons for its rise and fall.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Allan Beveridge

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  1. Allan Beveridge
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    David McCallum

Section Editor information

  1. Department of History, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

    Eric J. Engstrom

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Beveridge, A. (2022). Antipsychiatry: The Mid-twentieth Century Era (1960–1980). In: McCallum, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4106-3_91-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4106-3_91-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-4106-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-4106-3

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