Life as a Basaglian Revolutionary: A history lesson with Dr. Giovanna Del Guidice

Heart Forward Conversations from the Heart

Send us a text

Dr. Giovanna Del Guidice has spent her entire career in pursuit of promoting a more humane and relationship-based treatment ethos for people living with mental health conditions. In this interview we hear the story about how she boldly travelled to Colorno Italy as a young psychiatrist in her 20’s to meet Franco Basaglia in person. The fact that she had read his books and wanted to follow his lead, because she was uncomfortable with the teachings of conventional psychiatry, clearly impressed him because you will hear the story about how she was offered a job and became part of the original equipe! On her part, it was a bold move but clearly changed the trajectory of her life.

Giovanna, since 2010, has been involved in the Conferenza Basaglia (CONFERENZA PERMANENTE PER LA SALUTE MENTALE NEL MONDO FRANCO BASAGLIA ). This is an organization that she co-founded with Dr. Franco Rotelli, the psychiatrist who followed Franco Basaglia to lead the mental health department in Trieste in the late 1970’s. She currently serves as president.

From the website, her biography is presented:

“Psychiatrist, one of Franco Basaglia’s collaborators, has worked since 1971 in the deconstruction process of the Trieste psychiatric hospital and for the construction of community mental health services. She was director of the mental health department of the Caserta Health Authority (2002-2006) and of Cagliari (2006-2009). Mental health consultant of the Calabria health councilor.

She is a champion for the abolition of mechanical restraint in mental health services, which is seen as a remnant of the old asylum culture and is detrimental to the dignity and rights of those who suffer it, but also negatively impacts the operators who are required to implement it. She is the author of a book … e tu slegalo subito (“and you untie it immediately”) which was published in 2020. [Note: this Vimeo trailer for the book underscores why this is such an inhumane practice.]

In this episode, we are aided by the translation skills of Erika Rossi, a documentary filmmaker who recently directed a film that features Giovanna Del Guidice among many others. The film, 50 years of CLU, captures the story of the formation of the first social cooperative in Trieste.