Giorgio Antonucci
| Giorgio Antonucci | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 1933 (age 83–84) Lucca, Tuscany, Italy |
| Residence | Florence, Italy |
| Citizenship | Italian |
| Fields | Psychiatry |
| Institutions | Psychiatric hospital Osservanza, Imola (Italy), psychiatric hospital Luigi Lolli, Imola (Italy), Citizens Commission on Human Rights |
| Known for | criticism of psychiatry, freedom of thought, non-psychiatric approach to psychological suffering, rejection of the involuntary commitment |
| Notable awards | Thomas Szasz Award (2005) |
Giorgio Antonucci (Lucca, 1933) is an Italian physician, known for his questioning of the basis of psychiatry.
In 1963 Giorgio Antonucci studied psychoanalysis with Roberto Assagioli, the founder of psychosynthesis, and began to dedicate himself to psychiatry trying to solve the problems of the patients and avoiding hospitalisation and any kind of coercive method. In 1968 he worked in Cividale del Friuli, in a ward of the city hospital that had been opened as an alternative to the mental hospitals.
In 1969 he worked at the psychiatric hospital of Gorizia, directed by Franco Basaglia. From 1970 to 1972 he directed the mental hygiene centre of Castelnuovo nei Monti in the province of Reggio Emilia. From 1973 to 1996 he worked in Imola on the dismantling of the psychiatric hospitals Osservanza and Luigi Lolli. During the earthquake that struck Sicily in 1968 he worked as a doctor with the Civil Protection Service of Florence. He currently lives in Florence and collaborates with the Italian branch of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights.
Dacia Maraini: "Regarding the so-called insane persons, what does this new method entail?"
Giorgio Antonucci: "For me it means that insane persons don't exist and that psychiatry must be completely eliminated."
In his writings, Giorgio Antonucci affirms that theoretically he is close to the humanistic-existential perspective of Carl Rogers, the approaches focused on the critique of psychiatry (Erving Goffman, R. D. Laing, David Cooper and Thomas Szasz) and the critique of the psychiatric institution of Franco Basaglia.
Szasz affirms to agree with Antonucci on the concept of "person" of the so-called psychiatric patients: they are, like us, persons in all respects, that can be judged emotionally and in their "human condition"; "mental illness" does not make the patient "less than a man", and it is not necessary to appeal to a psychiatrist to "give them back humanity" He is the founder of the non-psychiatric approach to psychological suffering, that is based on the following propositions:
...
Wikipedia