Basaglia, new humanism that restored rights to all On March 11th the 100th anniversary of the birth of the revolutionary psychiatrist TRIESTE (by Francesco De Filippo) "Maybe mental asylums will return to exist, maybe they will be closed but we have demonstrated that there is a different way of assisting the sick, and testimony is fundamental."
Giovanna Del Giudice, a psychiatrist, reels off from memory the phrase of Franco Basaglia, of whose group he was part.
Up in San Giovanni, in the upper part of Trieste, in the years of the "revolution", in this city already tormented by a hundred years of war, the craziest of psychiatrists succeeded in the impossible conceptual and then material undertaking of destroying the mental hospitals, untying the crazy people, free them from a hundred years of psychiatry made up of restraints and electroshock, and let them out.
They broke down the gates and behind the blue papier-mâché horse Marco Cavallo descended into the city together with the doctors, more cheerful, exuberant and disoriented than a pack army.
It is difficult to understand whether the people or the madmen were more scared, catapulted into the glittering world of freedom.
Giovanna Del Giudice speaks of "a new humanism", of a different look at the world, and of the "restoration of rights to the many who, once institutionally recognized as mad, had lost them".
A new paradigm of thought, not a new therapeutic model.
Next March 11th will mark the hundredth anniversary of Basaglia's birth, the world remembers it, Italy a little less so, although it has engraved the health (and philosophical) indications in the stone of the law, n.180 of May 13th 1978 which bears his name.
That law imposed the closure of mental hospitals and regulated compulsory healthcare treatment by establishing public mental health services.
He is remembered by Trieste, who loved and hated him, giving the first political imprint to the entire revolution.
Michele Zanetti, president (Christian Democrat) of the Province of Trieste from 1970 to 1977, was the political "support".
Without him the revolution would have taken other paths.
And he recalls that "at the time Piccolo fought hard against the council and the experience of Basaglia. There was no support but only many attacks".
And today?
"Today politics seems to be retreating", this is the same "intention of those responsible for health in Trieste and Gorizia", specifies Zanetti bitterly.
Even in the rest of Italy.
The shelves of the bookshops bend under the weight of the volumes written on the other, on the different, and on the fears that these exercise on us, able-bodied on the right side of the barricade.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the ostracism that still arises today regarding the works and thoughts of Basaglia, who died prematurely at the age of 56.
But there remain those new individuals worthy of the right and the belief that mental illness can and must be cured.
Those who chose that legacy and took it upon themselves summarize it well.
Cristina Montesi, internal medicine doctor of the territory between Trieste and Milan, second generation Basaglia native, "the principles of change in psychiatry mediated by Basaglia have spilled over onto the territorial services towards a medicine of personalisation, a medicine of reality, against the depersonalisation which can meet in a hospital dimension".
The assumption is simple: "The hospital does not ask itself where a person comes from, the territory does: it has the ability to observe people's needs, including social and cultural ones, with a dimension of proximity. Because medicine is rooted in the community , is a vision of attention to the existence of people".
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The two-day meeting promoted in Trieste on 11 and 12 March on the occasion of the centenary of the psychiatrist's birth is entitled 'Franco Basaglia today: a necessary thought'.
The initiative was presented this morning and is organized by ConF.Basaglia, the Basaglia Archive and Il Saggiatore, with the patronage of the Municipality of Trieste.
For Giovanna Del Giudice, psychiatrist and president of ConF.Basaglia, it is "a challenge to propose events throughout 2024, a challenge that makes us proud, because the city has once again responded. I believe that this revolution, made in Trieste, has also had the city as a protagonist, otherwise we would not have been able to close the mental hospitals and guarantee local services for the community".
It begins on March 11th at the Miela Theatre, with the presentation of the re-edition of Franco Basaglia's writings 1953-1980 and with the meeting 'Franco Basaglia today: a necessary thought'.
The in-depth and discussion seminar 'Franco Basaglia, to continue' is scheduled for 12 March at the mental health area A and B directorate in Trieste.
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