Antipsychiatry as the Stigma

The authors presents their perspectives on the relationship between antipsychiatry and the stigma of mental illness. The present paper aims to provide a short review of the basic principles of the antipsychiatric movement, and to discuss the atitudes of its most important theorists. The authors searched recent literature, as well as drawing upon some of the basic antipsychiatric texts. Antipsychiatry dates from 18^th century, and as an international movement it emerged during the 1960s as part of the historic tumult of the period rather than as a result of the evolution of scientific ideas. During that period psychiatrists began to see heredity as the cause of mental illness, became pessimistic about restoring patients to sanity, and adopted essentially a custodial approach to care that included use of physical restraints. Radical attitudes of antipsychiatry gave a significant incentive to review psychiatric theory and practice, especially with protecting the rights of mental patients and giving importance not only to somatic, but mental, social and spiritual sides of human existence. But, at the same time, they led to unwarranted attacks on psychiatry as a medical discipline, encouraged different views of its stigmatization and in a certain measure affected the weakening of social awareness about the importance of medical and institutional care for the mentally ill persons. After the 1970s, the antipsychiatry movement became increasingly less influential, due in particular to the rejection of its politicized and reductionistic understanding of psychiatry.