Author:
Sabrina Bianchi (Università degli Studi di Urbino Carlo Bo)
Abstract:
The essay concerns two extremely distant personalities from both a historical and a ethical perspective: Spinoza, a much controversial and complex thinker of his time, and Françoise Sironi, a representative of ethnopsychiatry. A French psychotherapist, Sironi has been the first in building a way of thinking and practice designed to change the fortunes of treatment and taking care of individuals who are victims of political violence. The concept of nature – as the key to trace the individual dynamics construction, through the fundamental role of the passions and the community – is taken here as a guideline. Spinoza used to refer to it as a dimension that enters into the individual wrapping him at the same time, and it is crucial for his success in the world. But the concept of Nature is also joined to Culture, and on this side it is proposed by ethnopsychiatry as a set of meanings that allows the individual to build a continuity between the personal and the collective experience. Through the rapprochement between Spinoza and Sironi we try to offer a proposal of thought and care in which ethnopsychiatry and philosophy merge for the purpose of healing the wounds of a violent and oppressive political system.