Summary
Wounded emotions are a part of all kinds of psychic suffering, not only depression. But whether we like it or not, emotions follow us in every circumstance of our lives, in good times and bad, not only when we are unwell, even if we are not always aware of them.
In La follia che è anche in noi [The Madness That is Also in Us], Eugenio Borgna brings together his reflections on the past, present, and future of psychiatry with moments from his own life that are “rhapsodic and winding, where experiences near and far in time have flowed together.”
With a preface by Stefano Redaelli.
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: The Threshold
- I. The Revolution in Psychiatry
- II. The Psychiatry of Yesterday
- III. The Psychiatry of Today
- IV. The Psychiatry of the Future
- Final Reflections
- Bibliography
Contents
Preface
Stefano Redaelli
Eugenio Borgna is, equally with Franco Basaglia, the most important Italian psychiatrist.
If Basaglia gave psychiatric patients back their freedom (with his reform that led to the passage of Law 180 in Italy in 1978), Borgna gave psychiatry back its soul.
And more: he brought it into conversation with philosophy, literature, sociology, spirituality. He took inspiration from these areas of knowledge to practice a human and humane form of psychiatry: phenomenological in nature (like Franco Basaglia, and to some extent, the psychiatrist and writer Mario Tobino), it asks us to put illness aside in order to approach the afflicted with empathy, a capacity for identification, and an attention to their inner world—not solely to their body (as somatological psychiatry—asylum psychiatry—does, only viewing patients exclusively as bearers of a “diseased organ”).
This marvelous book, The Madness That Is Also in Us, follows Borgna through sixty years of work (and writing) both within and without the asylum, under the sign of the (ethical) revolution that phenomenology sparked in psychiatry.
The book is divided into four chapters, entitled The Revolution in Psychiatry, The Psychiatry of Yesterday, The Psychiatry of Today, and The Psychiatry of the Future. I will limit myself to commenting on the fourth and final chapter (which, in a sense, also encompasses the others).
Details
- Pages
- VIII, 88
- Publication Year
- 2026
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783034351089
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783034351096
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9783034351072
- DOI
- 10.3726/b23363
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2026 (January)
- Keywords
- Eugenio Borgna The Madness That is Also in Us La follia che è anche in noi pyschology pyschiatry Phenomenology emotions
- Published
- Bruxelles, Berlin, Chennai, Lausanne, New York, Oxford, 2025. viii, 88 pp.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG
