ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the problems and questions involved in the humanisation of a forensic psychiatric clinic. What once started as the humanisation of prison systems threatens to turn into the opposite. New rationalised forms of control, discipline and protection once were definitely a humanising trend, but today rationalisation and bureaucratisation are leading to new forms of humiliation of clients as much as of employees. From a humanist perspective humans are twofold beings: capable of self-direction but always relationally embedded. Humanisation is the practical philosophy of humanism. Humanism takes this image of the human to be both descriptive and normative. Relational autonomy is constitutive of human dignity. Human lives are fragile autonomy and relations are constantly under pressure and threat of dehumanisation. But because people are autonomous, humanisation can only be a process of ongoing development of autonomy and relationships; it can never become a system into which people can be forced.
