SPAZI DELLA PSICHIATRIA TRA PASSATO E PRESENTE: IMPARARE A RIFLETTERE SULLE STORIE DI CURA CHE RACCONTANO [SPACES OF PSYCHIATRIC CARE BETWEEN PAST AND PRESENT: LEARNING TO REFLECT ON THE CARING STORIES THEY TELL]

In our perspective, a reflection on education and caring in the psychiatric services cannot ignore their past, where spaces and times of care were completely different from those that character- ize the healthcare system today. Many signs, traces, implicit and explicit fragments of that past can be found in current services. According to an “archeological” approach, we believe that those spaces have not been completely overcome and somehow, they are still part of our way of caring in psychiatric services. Hence, what traces of the past are left in those services? How and where can we find them? What should we preserve from the past and what should we overcome? In our work, we will try to find some of the traces and stories that could have contributed to shaping education and care in pre- sent day Italian psychiatric services. These developed as isolated spaces and places of confinement and oppression and are trans- forming into open places and healing spaces, aimed at promoting mental health.