The diploma thesis describes some critical views on the perception of the phenomena of
mental disorders in psychiatry and society, as well as the procedures of psychiatric treatment of people diagnosed with a mental illness. I have placed the wave of alternative approaches and the gradual improvement of the patients' situation and their rights in the wider sociopolitical and historical context. The central themes are the anti-psychiatric movement, deinstitutionalization and the special approach of the Slovenian psychiatrist Janez Rugelj.
Criticisms by various authors mostly related to society's attitude towards individuals with
(alleged) mental disorders, the methods of care within psychiatry and the negative effects of (institutional) psychiatry. Many have also dealt with the question of the origin of mental
disorder, judging social or biological factors. People who called for social change and reform of the psychiatric discipline were often limited by disagreements with contemporaries within the profession.
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