[Psychiatry and ethics].

Abstract

A certain contemporary anti-psychiatric movement denounces the violence of any form of psychiatry that could only repress, in what would be a sociopolitical gesture, the alleged mentally-ill's deviation. If such a risk cannot be excluded, it is nevertheless necessary to reveal the fallacious antinomy that underlies this controversy and consists in opposing an organic disorder, used as an alibi, to the claim of an utter liberty. The judiciary, on its part, can but escape with difficulty this dichotomy--that a certain psychiatric practice occasionally reinforces--of a mental "disease" and of a self-reliant responsibility. The only difference then is that what appeared to be an alibi on the one hand, is an excuse on the other. The question, in fact, is not so simple. One cannot associate, without further ado, a psycho-pathological disorder to one of organic origin. It is the essential being of man as a whole that is here implicated, a being of language, desire and meaning who must be heard and understood as such. But one cannot claim further that this meaning is in full and immediate possession of itself and expresses without restriction i.e. a political choice opposed to malicious and repressive machinations. The acknowledgement of this meaning certainly does not make the psychiatrist's job easier, especially when he must intervene on social grounds, there where the risk of suicide and aggression are prevalent. An irresponsible non-interference, far from being a liberator, could only lead to a much more unrelenting tightening of the circle of violence.