Date: Sat, 13 Dec 1997 23:25:58 +0100
From: Calogero Cannarozzo <cannarozzo.lillo-AT-iol.it>
Subject: Re: M-PSY: Re: Greetings from Italy


At 21-57 03/12/97 +0000, you wrote:
>It sounds as if even in Italy the pendulum is swinging back toward more
>restrictions on the freedom of people with mental illness.
>
>In Britain the media continues to give prominent headlines to occasional
>deaths by people with mental illness. Recently it has been claimed that
>these are occurring at the rate of 2 per month. That is just enough to keep
>the pot on the boil, even though it is only about 1 ten thousandth of the
>number of discharges each month. (about 200,000 a year if I am not mistaken?)
>
>The latest case is of a man who had just been discharged; he rang the ward
>to tell them he had killed his wife, the nurse was so shocked that she put
>the phone down, possibly resulting in some delay and by the time the
>services reached him he had also killed himself. His children are
>complaining that they have lost not just one but two parents.
>
>The New Labour government has an able lawyer who is heading mental health
>policy, and Tony Blair has signalled  interest. Policy proposals are likely
>to come out for reform, but the general character of the government is to
>emphasise responsibility to society.
>
>The pressure for greater legally-enforced supervision in the community is
>strong.
>
>What attitude should marxists take? Well I do not think there is a simple
>answer and in that spirit I welcome Calogero's report from Italy, with
>people on different sides.
>
>I think mental illness not only reflects to some extent the quality of
>capitalist society, (even though it exists in non-capitalist societies too)
>but the handling of mental illness has a lot of implications for the nature
>of civil society and the nature of socialist society.
>
>I generally favour a degree of coercion or pressure to address real
>problems, but I would like that pressure to be at the most micro level
>possible to negotiate and facilitate solutions within families and between
>companions, with the legal framework to monitor this rather than itself to
>be an instrument of state coercion.
>
>I think the tug of war between libertarians and controllers is a
>misconceived phenomenon of bourgeois civil society.
>
>But Calogero's signature line, if my very weak Italian does not mislead me,
>looks a rather dialectical statement by Machiavelli. Perhaps Calogero would
>like to expand on this and object-subject relations?
>
>Chris Burford
>
>London

I have to correct a little mistake in my message of 30/11/97: on Tony Negri
I wanted to answer to Russel Pearson not to Chris Burford.
About the question of the Mental Health bill, I have to note with
satisfaction the message that Paolo Ferrero, deputy and member of the
national direction of Rifondazione Comunista, sent to me 10/12/97,
answering to my disagreement message of 2/12/97:

>From: "FERRERO PAOLO" <paolo.ferrero-AT-rifondazione.it>
>To: <cannarozzo.lillo-AT-iol.it>
>Subject: R: proposta di legge sulla salute mentale
>Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 21:20:11 +0100

>
>Caro Calogero, la proposta =E8 stata fermata in quanto assolutamente non
>condivisibile dal partito.
>
>paolo ferrero
It sound like this: " Dear Calogero, the bill has been stopped, as it was
not in any manner accettable by the party."

I did appreciate very much last message from C. Burford, specially when he
says that there are no simple answers. I agree that the  alternative
between libertarians and controllers is a misconception : infact in
concrete praxis the things usually appear more clear ( of course in a legal
framework of warranty) and the real problem is the amount and the quality
of the care resources. This is the challenge for the civil society and for
the socialist society. Everyone has noted how has changed the concept of
psychiatric care from the age of worldwide enlargement of  the economic and
democratic basis of the society during the sixties to the actual age of
new-liberism. Every one can see how the american scientism/organicism is
influencing more and more psychiatrists all over the world. Once more there
is a sharp demonstration that the historical and productive phase of
capitalim has an effect on the sciences trend.
Mental illness exists also in non capitalistic societies, but the way to
treat affected people  differ very much from one society to the other, and
this finish to determine the "natural evolution" of the illness. I think
also that not only the dominant conception of mental illness, but also the
dominant conceptions of mind, personality, individuality, subject and
object determine the form and the amount of mental illness.
 I am not so clever to expand so much in the topic subject/object, but I
think that the Descartes sharp split of the world that overlapped with the
full  burgeoisie's "adolescence", effected many phenomena. In particular,
since then, psychiatry fluctuate between a objectifing view of the
anomalous behaviour (e.g. organic illness) and a psychologising view (e.g.
psychoanalysis). Even some social interpretations sometimes can be
objectifing. I think it could be usefull to develop the following statement
by G. Luk=E0cs ( the citation is not literal): " there is an inseparable
relation between the world, the meaningfull universe where the men live,
and the men that create it, and this relation is in both ways: the subject
is part of the world and pratically introduces the meaning in it, but the
world is part of the subject and constitute it". The topic is complex, I
cannot say much more, but I feel it is full of fruitfull implications and I
expect contributions by the members of the list.
As long as concernes the Machiavelli's statement, I am glad that someone
realised that the reason why I put it in my signature line was its
dialectical content, showing that, in nuce, a dialectical view was present
before Egel and Marx.
<< ...(Per Machiavelli "fortuna" ha un duplice significato, uno oggettivo e
un altro soggettivo. La
" fortuna " =E8 la forza naturale delle cose, la concorrenza propizia degli
eventi, quella che sar=E0 la Provvidenza del Vico, oppure =E8 quella potenza
trascendente di cui favoleggiava la vecchia dottrina medioevale, cio=E8 dio,
e per il Machiavelli ci=F2 non =E8 poi che la virt=FA stessa dell'individuo ...)>>
A. Gramsci   "Quaderni dal carcere"
Cfr Quaderno II (XVIII) pp  63 bis - 64


"-"Calogero Cannarozzo
psichiatra, Livorno.


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
"La fortuna e la natura... la non ti fa
mai un bene che all'incontro non
surga un male."
(Niccol=F2 Machiavelli)


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