title: Critics and dissenters: reflections on "anti-psychiatry" in the United States.
abstract: During the 1970s various professionals and social activists adopted an explicitly anti-psychiatry position which was perceived by many as a new phenomenon. Hostility to psychiatry actually predates the establishment of psychiatry as a profession in 1844, and organized opposition to psychiatric practices appeared in the late nineteenth century. The deinstitutionalization of the 1970s, which was aided by development within psychiatry, had a strong anti-psychiatry component, but the novel aspect was the organization of ex-mental patients themselves. By the 1980s the decline of psychiatric power, dissension among ex-patients, and new social trends vitiated the anti-psychiatry movement.
authors.affiliation: Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey 07102.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dain
mesh_terms: D003688:Deinstitutionalization / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric / Q000266:history; D006801:Humans; D010344:Patient Advocacy / Q000266:history; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000266:history*; D014481:United States