ABSTRACT
This chapter offers some ideas about the nature of 'critical reflection'. It discusses the recovery approach. For Paulo Freire 'critical pedagogy' involves a very different understanding of education practice. It is an educational practice with civic, political and moral dimensions. The technological way of understanding mental illness is usually seen as the only scientific way to approach states of madness and distress. The recovery approach involved a direct challenge to the technological paradigm. The recovery approach is about reversing the order of priorities. The chapter presents five dimensions of critical psychiatry: ontological, epistemological, empirical, ethical and political. Ontology deals with questions about what sort of entities exist and how they can be classified and understood. Related to the issue of ontology is the epistemological question of what kind of knowledge is appropriate in the field of mental health. The empirical evidence does not support the technological paradigm.
