ABSTRACT
In the early 1960s, mental healthcare was the first medical domain that met with fundamental criticism on an international basis. This domain had entered the modern health system, with a focus on cure and technology. The various Western medical "utopias" had a considerable degree of similarity in their outcome: cure-oriented, driven by specialists, knowledge and technology, and with a strong emphasis on the hospital as the place of medical action. This foundation of the Western health system became contested in the 1970s. In the early 1970s, against the backdrop of mounting international pressure on modern mental healthcare, an experiment was conducted in the Netherlands that would become an icon of resistance against the dominant mental healthcare regime: the so-called "Dennendal case". With budget savings, concerns about the affordability and accessibility of modern healthcare started to conflict with concerns about its quality and acceptability. Criticism of the inaccuracy, carelessness and reprehensible strategies of the pharmaceutical industry is hardly a recent phenomenon.
