Mapping critical psychiatry: a transnational study of critical psychiatry's reception in Western Europe and the US, 1965-today

The 1960s and 1970s saw a turn in the history of psychiatry critique, when in the UK, in Germany, and the US therapeutic communities and patients' collectives were founded. These groups were a reaction to institutionalised psychiatry; some were guided by reformist psychiatrists, others self-managed by patients. The goal of my research is to establish a new history of critical psychiatry beyond national contexts, and to uncover how psychiatry critique became a powerful tool for patients to confront social marginalisation, lack of rights and isolation. I will offer a new understanding of critical psychiatry as a global network that circulated knowledge and practices. My project includes interviews with yet unconsidered figures of the critical psychiatry scenes, as well as archival and literary sources. I will reconstruct key historical events, illuminate the reception of critical psychiatry in Western Europe and the US, and explore critical psychiatry's significance for contemporary society.