title: The deinstitutionalization movement in Italy. Ideological thrust to cultural error.
abstract: The Basaglia movement in Italian psychiatry is described and analyzed in several contexts: the historical, the cultural, and the "practical" in terms of outcomes. Those who began the movement of democratic psychiatry grasped interesting elements of "critical theory": the definitions of madness, power structures, and medical discourse itself. A backward look at the sea change, however, reveals states and rates of dysfunction that disappoint and indicate that political ideology divorced from cultural awareness can often harden the opposition.
authors.affiliation: University of California, San Diego, USA.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Romanucci-Ross
mesh_terms: D003148:Communism; D003156:Community Mental Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003469:Culture; D003688:Deinstitutionalization / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006778:Hospitals, Psychiatric / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care