Biography of Franco Basaglia

The health of the mind

11 March 1924 29 August 1980 Franco Basaglia, famous Venetian psychiatrist and neurologist, was born on 11 March of 1924. He is considered the founder of modern conception of mental health. For sure, the psychiatric discipline in Italy suffered with him of rivoluzionamenti likely to be still affected by her studies. To him we owe the law 180, also known as "Law Basaglia," which transformed the old system of psychiatric hospitals in Italy, by promoting significant progress in the treatment of the mentally ill, in the care of his discomfort, and in respect for his person. It is said that the best psychiatrists (like the best psychologists) are typically people with their own intellectual and moral disturbance, tormented by childhood trauma or nerve stress of adulthood, as seems to have been Freud, and many other renowned industry luminaries. At least this is what the public misconception or urban legend we have imparted. In any case, Franco Basaglia didn't happen. Pimp with three children in a family rather wealthy, Franco Basaglia graduated at the age of 25 years, in 1949, at the University of Padua, he attended grammar school in his hometown. In 1953 he specialized in "nerve and mental Diseases at the Faculty of neuropsychiatric clinic of Padova. That was also the lucky year of her marriage: bride Franca Ongaro, mother of his two children, with whom she had a bond not only sentimental but also intellectual. In fact his wife is coauthor with him several books on modern psychiatry. Politically liberal trend, he played with the independent left party, whose members sat in Parliament ever since 1953: really a turning point in his already rather serene life. He became a lecturer in psychiatry from 1958, and this was the only known, if not sore, a little more difficult in her life: among colleagues was not universally appreciated, and indeed its innovative thesis that today we would define dictated by a mentality "always on the side of the patient" were considered revolutionary and even absurd by many of shamelessly academics. Both politically and scientifically too progressive for the area in which she moved, and especially for the period, he decided in 1961 to leave teaching and her family moved to Gorizia, where he had gotten the drift of the psychiatric hospital. Real Madhouse old-fashioned, the psychiatric clinic of Gorizia did not give him an easy life. But the tenacity with which he dedicated himself to the coveted transformation methods of treatment was able to take him to the Elimination of the practice of electroshock therapy on patients (electroconvulsive therapy). Also promoted a new approach between patient and hospital staff: closer, and indeed more attentive to human exchange given by dialogue and moral support, rather than merely medication and professional. From the experience in that Madhouse sprang the idea for one of his most famous books: "the institution denied. Report from a psychiatric hospital, "published in 1967. He was also Director of the hospital for a few years in Colorno and afterwards of Trieste, Basaglia founded a movement called Democratic Psychiatry, inspired by the current of thought of "anti-psychiatry", already widespread in Britain. The movement, which spread this trend in Italy for the first time, was born in 1973, while in the United Kingdom was from the riots of 1968 that had made its way this line of interpretation by the revolutionary flavor than all the previous years ' psychiatric medicine. Franco Basaglia died in his beloved city on water, Venice, on 29 August 1980 at the age of 56 years old due to a brain tumor. His approach to the care of mental illness is properly termed phenomenological-existential, in sharp contrast to the positivistic traditional medicine. At the time weren't sure for more ideas carried out by Franco Basaglia and few other precursors of his time, but that is why today we remember him as one of the leading pioneers of modern psychiatry.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.