Psychiatric Communalism

Psychiatric Communalism. Attitudes and Distances in Contemporary Psychotherapeutic Practice, Ioannis K. Tsegos. ARMOS Publications, 2012.

From the back cover:

This article attempts to distinguish the representative communal approach from the collectivist one, which dominates due to its monopolistic use in the field of drug addiction.

It focuses on the dipole Collective-Community, historically and politically highlighting the disguised character of modern “Communalism”, which was used both ideologically (communism) and in terms of interests for the exploitation of weaker state economies (European “Community”!).

But the last, much-troubled name “Community” or “Communism”, has been distorted, since 1946, also by psychiatry, affecting the most important therapeutic method, namely the group psychotherapeutic approach to mental disorder. Thus, the awe of both the “special” and the “inferior,” both defended against the unreason, continues to be cultivated by religious approaches, such as state philanthropy, but also psychoanalysis.

However, the real community approach, both in name and in history, can be to a significant extent participatory and collaborative, recognizing the sufferer not as an “other” but as a valuable collaborator of the “special” for the strengthening of the psyche of both, by cultivating the relationship and recognizing and valuing otherness.

Based on the above, the 30-year anti-ideological communal quests of a local psychotherapeutic organization are also presented.

Παρουσίαση τοῦ βιβλίου  “Psychiatric Communalism” by Ioannis K., Tsegkou, at ARMOS Publications, on Saturday, March 28, 2015.

The following will speak about the book: Christos Giannaras, author, Theodoros Ziakas, author, Spyros Koutroulis, author.