The making of madness: counterculture and anti-psychiatry

The 1950s and especially the 1960s saw constant revisions of social values and customs, with young people's movements playing a major role, above all the so-called counter-culture. The powers-that-be categorized the behavior and attitudes of the movement's followers as constituting madness. This making of madness gave rise to a stream of thought known as anti-psychiatry, which calls into question the very essence of psychiatry. The present article criticizes the psychiatric models of that era and draws links between counter-culture movements and anti-psychiatry.