ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in this book. The book follows the anti-psychiatrists in their practice, social network, political activities, and social theory. It analyses the complex theoretical and social relationships that the group maintained with both psychiatry and the counter-culture. The book argues that even the anti-psychiatrists' most radical counter-cultural ideas were rooted in mainstream psychiatric theories—not least their anti-institutionalism, their critique of the family, and their calls for social and personal liberation. In many ways, these are the signature theoretical positions of the group, and yet it is possible to trace their roots back to, for example, military psychiatry in the case of the therapeutic community. Ultimately, the book argues that the anti-psychiatric journey was not away from psychiatry per se, but away from institutional psychiatry and the great hospitals that it was practiced in while also forming a practical, social, and theoretical bridge, however narrow, between mainstream psychiatry and the counter-culture.
