[Franco Basaglia and the Italian mental health act: a law aimed to restore the rights of citizenship]

Recenti Prog Med. 2024 Mar;115(3):117-118. doi: 10.1701/4211.42037.
[Article in Italian]

Abstract

The psychiatric reform act passed in Italy in 1978 - which was born in the wake of Franco Basaglia's work - had among its main aims the restoration of dignity and rights to people suffering from mental disorders and the closure of asylums and other totalizing institutions. On the centenary of Basaglia's birth, we must reason on the state of social and health care not only in the field of mental health. In fact, the rights of women seeking for abortion, the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community, the prison population, and migrants are also on the take. If the one led by Franco Basaglia in Italy was a revolution, it cannot be said to have been accomplished until the rights of citizenship are restored to all the people to whom these same rights are not recognized.

Publication types

  • English Abstract

MeSH terms

  • Citizenship
  • Female
  • Hospitals, Psychiatric
  • Humans
  • Italy
  • Mental Disorders* / therapy
  • Mental Health*
  • Pregnancy