ABSTRACT
Chapter 3, A critical, historical, and interdisciplinary view on the human mind, takes up the history of modern mental health care and how it connects to sociocultural and historical contexts and changes. The chapter explores the meaning of critical, historical, and interdisciplinary thinking and highlights the reciprocal and sociocultural side of the human being. It shows that semiotic activity, such as making a diagnosis, the keeping of medical records, and the wearing of uniforms have both a representational and cultural function. The dialectical relationship between the independent and acting individual (such as the mental health care worker or service user) and the socially dependent individual is analyzed. The chapter demonstrates how the need for social belonging directs attention to the existential meaning of self-reflection and to the nature of communication. It points out that without communication and without social units there will be no mental health care system, no welfare state, no political order, and no democracy.
