Basaglia where are you? Why young scholars still need a Basaglian approach to research in the field of Clinical Psychology

While the evolution of Basaglia’s legacy remains relatively underexplored in contemporary clinical psychology, the current global scenario reveals how his insights on the relationship between mental suffering, institutional power and social inequalities remain profoundly relevant. The progressive defunding of public mental health systems and the rise of privatized care models are again producing exclusion and marginalization—conditions that Basaglia and his collaborators critically denounced decades ago. This study explores how Basaglian and post-Basaglian practices have evolved and what they can still offer to young scholars and clinicians today. Through qualitative semi-structured interviews with ten Italian psychologists and psychiatrists engaged in critical, community-based, and social-clinic settings, the research applies a reflexive thematic analysis to trace continuities and transformations from 1978 to the present. Emerging themes include: (1) the role of community in developing mental health interventions, (2) the political dimension of care as a form of resistance, (3) the need for participatory, horizontal research methodologies, and (4) the rediscovery of clinical work as social and political act. Participants highlighted both the erosion of collective and public spaces and the persistence of practices of resistance within the community -such as social clinics-, calling for a renewed critical and political stance among young psychologists. The findings invite a reflection on how Basaglia’s thought can still inspire transformative approaches to research and practice in times of increasing precarity and social fragmentation.