Franco Basaglia facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Franco Basaglia
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| Born | 11 March 1924 San Polo, Venice, Italy
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| Died | 29 August 1980 (aged 56) San Polo, Venice, Italy
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| Alma mater | University of Padua |
| Known for | Creating Democratic Psychiatry and Basaglia Law, initiating Italian psychiatric reform |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Psychiatry |
| Institutions | University of Padua, University of Parma, mental hospitals in Padua, Gorizia, Parma, Trieste, Arezzo, mental service in Lazio |
| Influences | Karl Jaspers, Ludwig Binswanger, Eugène Minkowski, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, Erving Goffman |
Franco Basaglia (born March 11, 1924 – died August 29, 1980) was a famous Italian psychiatrist. He was also a neurologist and a professor. Basaglia is known for changing how people thought about mental health.
He believed that large mental hospitals should be closed down. He was a leader in the Democratic Psychiatry movement. Basaglia was the main person behind Law 180, which closed mental hospitals in Italy. Many people see him as the most important Italian psychiatrist of the 20th century.
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Franco Basaglia's Life Story
Franco Basaglia was born in Venice, Italy, on March 11, 1924. He studied medicine at the University of Padova. In 1949, he earned his medical degree.
While studying, he learned about the ideas of important thinkers. These included Karl Jaspers and Ludwig Binswanger. He also studied phenomenological philosophers like Edmund Husserl. Basaglia also looked at the work of people who criticized mental institutions. These critics included Erving Goffman and Michel Foucault.
Franco Basaglia passed away in Venice.
Basaglia's Ideas on Mental Health
Franco Basaglia's ideas changed over time. His work can be seen in three main stages. First, he questioned if psychiatry truly helped people. He wondered if it sometimes oppressed them instead.
Second, he worked to change mental hospitals from the inside. This happened when he was in Gorizia from 1962 to 1968.
Third, he focused on closing down mental hospitals. This period was in Trieste from 1971 to 1979. This process is called deinstitutionalization.
Life in Old Mental Hospitals
When Basaglia first arrived at the mental hospital in Gorizia, he was shocked. He saw how patients were treated. Doors were locked, and he could hear crying and screams.
He observed that patients faced harsh physical methods. They were often restrained or given difficult treatments. These methods were used to control people who were sad, scared, or difficult.
In 1961, Basaglia started making big changes in Gorizia. He stopped binding patients to their beds. He also ended all methods of isolation. His actions started a huge discussion across Italy. This debate led to a new law in 1978. This law slowly closed down mental hospitals across the country.
Why Basaglia Wanted Change
Basaglia believed that many problems seen in patients were caused by the hospitals themselves. He thought these problems were not always part of their illness. He saw mental hospitals as places that took away freedom. They were like prisons with strict rules. Patients, doctors, and nurses all became part of this system.
He noticed something important. Many behaviors thought to be part of mental illness disappeared when patients left the hospital. For example, blank stares or repeated movements often stopped. This made Basaglia realize that society didn't truly understand mental illnesses. He felt that staff and patients needed to be free from the old hospital culture.
Basaglia worried that if hospitals weren't fully closed, their old ways would return. He thought that as long as confinement was possible, doctors would feel fully in charge. Patients would then feel their freedom depended on the doctor's wishes.
Basaglia believed that mental illness often came from people being excluded by society. He said that just freeing someone wasn't enough. People needed to get their lives and histories back.
He and his followers also thought that psychiatry was sometimes used to control people. They felt it helped society decide who was "normal" and who was "deviant." This approach helped medicalize social problems.
Basaglia's Important Writings
Franco Basaglia's first major report was in 1964. It was called The destruction of the Mental Hospital as a place of institutionalisation. He presented it at a meeting in London. In this report, Basaglia said that psychiatrists were finally realizing something. The first step to helping a patient was to give them back their freedom. He said that discovering freedom was the most important thing psychiatry could do.
In 1968, a book called L'istituzione negata (The Institution Denied) was published. Franco Basaglia edited this book. It became very popular in Italy. The book showed and explained the changes happening in Gorizia. It also spread the discussion about changing institutions to other areas, like factories and schools.
Basaglia's Lasting Impact
Franco Basaglia's work had a huge impact on mental healthcare. He inspired politicians and other doctors to make big changes. He helped create new, kinder ways of caring for people.
Giovanna Russo and Francesco Carelli said that Basaglia's reform was ahead of its time. Society might not have been ready for it in 1978. But now, it's clear that his ideas are part of modern healthcare. Italy's example helped other countries move towards closing large mental hospitals.
Giovanni de Girolamo and others agree that Basaglia's work was key. It helped move psychiatric care into the main healthcare system. It also made psychiatry more visible and respected.
P. Fusar-Poli and other experts noted that because of the Basaglia law, psychiatry in Italy became part of general health services. It was no longer a separate, less important area of medicine.
In 2001, Rita Levi-Montalcini, a Nobel Prize winner, praised Basaglia. She called him the founder of a new idea of mental illness. She said he was a great scientist and a kind person.
Some people had concerns about the changes. The British psychologist Richard Bentall noted that after Law 180, some doctors worried. They felt that prisons were becoming places for people with serious mental illness. They also felt unable to help patients. However, a network of smaller community mental health clinics slowly grew. These new clinics replaced the old system.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka said that Basaglia brought together many people who wanted change. He created the conditions for the 1978 mental health law. This law caused both excitement and criticism. But Basaglia managed to give Italian psychiatry a much-needed push.
The American psychiatrist Loren Mosher called Basaglia the most creative and important European psychiatrist since Freud.
Francine Saillant and Serge Genest believe Basaglia was one of Italy's greatest thinkers. His changes to psychiatry and his ideas about society made him a leading figure of his time.
Thomas Szasz had a different view of Basaglia's work. He felt that Basaglia's ideas were sometimes misunderstood. Szasz argued that Basaglia didn't truly end psychiatry. Instead, he moved where people were treated, from mental hospitals to general hospitals.
See also
In Spanish: Franco Basaglia para niños
- Basaglia Law
- Giorgio Coda
- Giorgio Antonucci
- Democratic Psychiatry
- Psychiatric reform in Italy
- Deinstitutionalisation
- Anti-psychiatry
Films on Franco Basaglia
- I giardini di Abele, by Sergio Zavoli, 1968, on RaiPlay.
- C'era una volta la città dei matti... (There was once the city of the mad...) directed by Silvano Agosti, 2000, Istituto Luce.
- La seconda ombra (The second shadow) directed by Marco Turco, producer Rai Fiction and Ciao Ragazzi!, 2010
