ABSTRACT
Histoire de la folie is, of course, much more than a contribution to this or that epoch in the history of psychiatry and not the least of its effects has been the threat it has provoked to the self-understanding and self-justification of the contemporary psychiatric practitioner. Foucault delivers a perspective on how the whole project of modern psychiatry is to be understood and assessed and, to judge from the history of critical reaction to his work, he did not appear to leave much space in which psychiatric practitioners could attempt to stake out a legitimate claim for themselves.
