Back to search

DIV-INT-Annet internasjonalt samarbeid

MSH: The Many Faces of Psychiatry

Awarded: NOK 12,000

I will examine how Michel Foucault (1926-1984) analyzed Western psychiatry throughout his career, from the time psychiatry appears as a separate and autonomous discipline in the late 18th and early 19th century, to the 20th and 21st centuries. I will tent atively divide Foucault?s analyses into three chronological periods to investigate if his views can be said to represent three different historical developments: existentialism and phenomenology in the 1950s, structuralism in the 1960s and power and socia l mobility in the 1970s. In the 1980s Foucault does not write explicitly about psychiatry. For the time being I choose to put this period aside, even though in his later years he had a stronger focus on the subject, and on the human need and opportunities for personal development.

Funding scheme:

DIV-INT-Annet internasjonalt samarbeid