Author(s): John Foot

Psychology | Biography and Memoir

In 1961, when Franco Basaglia became Director of the Gorizia asylum, on the Italian border with Yugoslavia, it was a place of horror. Patients were restrained for long periods, and therapy was largely a matter of electric and insulin shocks. The corridors stank, and for many of the interned the doors were locked for life. Basaglia was expected to practise all the skills of oppression in which he had been schooled. Instead, he closed down the place by opening it up from the inside, bringing freedom and democracy to the patients, as well as to the nurses and the psychiatrists working in that 'total institution'. The first comprehensive study of his revolutionary approach to mental health care, The Man Who Closed the Asylums is a gripping account of one of the most influential movements in twentieth-century psychiatry.

Review: Peopled by a cast of extraordinary characters - patients, colleagues, friends and enemies - revolving around the charismatic and now legendary psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, John Foot's 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. -- Howard Caygill, author of On Resistance
The anti-asylum movement in 1960s and '70s Italy forms one of the most fascinating episodes in western psychiatry. John Foot's 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. -- Barbara Taylor, author of The Last Asylum
A brilliant historical reconstruction of the work and ideas of one of the world's leading exponents of critical psychiatry. -- David Forgacs, author of Italy's Margins
A portrait of imperfect people who had the passion and pragmatism to put an end to a brutal and broken system. -- Sarah Wise * Financial Times *
In Italy, the literature on Basaglia tends towards either idealisation or demonisation-he's considered either a secular saint or a dangerous radical. John Foot gives a much more rounded, and fair, portrait of a complicated, committed man. -- Tobias Jones * Guardian *
However strong the spirit of 1968, it will not eradicate the institutional impulse from human societies. -- Peter J. Leithart * First Things *
An excellent book -- Melissa Reynolds * Frugal Creativity *
Brings this diversity, richness and complexity to life in an exemplary fashion, illuminating all its different manifestations and contradictions... A triumph of committed scholarship -- Paul Gordon * TLS *
An important work by John Foot . should put to rest the badly-informed, lazy narrative that still prevails to the effect that Franco Basaglia was an idealist - an 'anti-psychiatrist' - who, at a stroke, disempowered doctors to certify someone as insane with disastrous results. -- Adrian C. Laing * Amazon *
John Foot stresses throughout his exemplary account [that] myth and reality aren't easily separated in Basaglia's story... Foot restores a critical distance that makes it possible to present Basaglia's achievements as part of a wider story. In Italy, it took more than one man to close the asylums. -- Mike Jay * London Review of Books *

Contents: part I
Gorizia, 1961-68

1 Gorizia: A Revolution at the Edge of Europe
2 Anti-psychiatry, Critical Psychiatry, Movements and Working Utopias
3 Reading Gorizia: Sources and Narratives
4 Basaglia and the British: A Missing Translation?
5 Building the Team: The First Equipe in Gorizia, 1961-69
6 Manicomio = Lager: History and Politics of an Analogy
7 Gorizia: The Therapeutic Community
8 Il Picchio: The Voice of the Patients and the 'Archive of the Revolution'
9 Anti-psychiatry, Italian Style
10 One of the Wonders of the World: The General Meeting
11 The Genesis of The Negated Institution
12 Th e Negated Institution: The 'Bible' of 1968
13 Gorizia and 1968, Gorizia as 1968
14 The Incident
15 I giardini di Abele and Morire di classe:Gorizia on Television and the Role of Photography
16 The End of an Era: Basaglia Leaves Gorizia

part II
Beyond Gorizia: The Long March

17 Perugia: The 'Perfect' Example, 1965-78
18 Parma: The Gas-Meter Reader and the Total Institution
19 Reggio Emilia: Out into the Territory, 1969-75
20 Gorizia: The Second Equipe, 1969-72
21 Arezzo: The Gorizian Diaspora
22 Trieste: The End of the Asylum, 1971-79
23 The 180 Law: History, Myth and Reality

Author Biography: John Foot is Professor of Modern Italian History in the School of Modern Languages, University of Bristol. He has published several books on sports and contemporary Italian history. He writes a blog for the Italian magazine Internazionale and has written for the Guardian, the Independent on Sunday, the Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books, and History Today.