Gladys Swain
Encyclopedia
Gladys Swain was a French
psychiatrist who is remembered today for her books about the history of Psychiatry
and her critique of the views of Michel Foucault
on the changing attitudes towards madness in western civilization.
Swain's best known works are Le subject de la folie (1977), Dialogue avec l'insensé (1994), and Le vrai Charcot (1997), the last two co-authored with Marcel Gauchet
. Her disagreements with Foucault are on two levels. On a factual level she provides new information about the birth of Psychiatry in France through the efforts of Pinel
and his followers which Foucault was apparently unaware of. On a philosophical level she takes issue with Foucault’s view that the locking up of the insane in asylums after about 1800 was caused by a growing intolerance of what is strange or different. While agreeing that in the Middle Ages the insane were accepted as part of society and free to wander about, she attributes the creation of the first asylums to the discovery that the insane were not mindless or controlled by outside forces, but were full human beings whose problems could perhaps be understood and mitigated. She does agree that the first efforts to do so were harsh and clumsy, but denies they were aimed purely at repression, as Foucault thought.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
psychiatrist who is remembered today for her books about the history of Psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
and her critique of the views of Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
on the changing attitudes towards madness in western civilization.
Swain's best known works are Le subject de la folie (1977), Dialogue avec l'insensé (1994), and Le vrai Charcot (1997), the last two co-authored with Marcel Gauchet
Marcel Gauchet
Marcel Gauchet is a French historian, philosopher and sociologist.Gauchet is professor at the Centre de recherches politiques Raymond Aron at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and head of the periodical Le Débat .Gauchet is one of France's most prominent contemporary...
. Her disagreements with Foucault are on two levels. On a factual level she provides new information about the birth of Psychiatry in France through the efforts of Pinel
Philippe Pinel
Philippe Pinel was a French physician who was instrumental in the development of a more humane psychological approach to the custody and care of psychiatric patients, referred to today as moral therapy...
and his followers which Foucault was apparently unaware of. On a philosophical level she takes issue with Foucault’s view that the locking up of the insane in asylums after about 1800 was caused by a growing intolerance of what is strange or different. While agreeing that in the Middle Ages the insane were accepted as part of society and free to wander about, she attributes the creation of the first asylums to the discovery that the insane were not mindless or controlled by outside forces, but were full human beings whose problems could perhaps be understood and mitigated. She does agree that the first efforts to do so were harsh and clumsy, but denies they were aimed purely at repression, as Foucault thought.