Franco Basaglia

In my opinion madness is a human condition. Madness is present in each of us as is reason. The problem is that society, to be able to call itself civil, should accept reason as well as madness.

Dear visitor, when I arrived in Gorizia in November 1961 to manage the Provincial Psychiatric Hospital, I felt a deep indignation for the way human people were treated. In fact, I wouldn’t have been able to propose anything psychiatric in a traditional insane asylum, where the sick people were tied, forced into a state of subjection at those who should take care of them. There couldn’t be any treatment options in a situation of non-communication between doctor and patient. I felt immediately that closing down the asylums was urgently needed, if not simply obvious.