ESSAYS Psychiatry and Politics: Some Preliminary Considerations

This article explores the usually invisible relationship of psychiatry and politics. It is argued that all human relationships can be understood in terms of the type of political interactions existing between citizens, and that these types include the anarchistic, authoritarian, and democratic. It is theorized that each type of politics is both the result and expression of specific forms of interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships. The author presents the opinion that psychiatry functions according to the authoritarian mode of politics and explores relational consequences of this praxis. The author concludes with a description of his personal, democratic alternative to current psychiatric politics.