The end of Pinel's hope and the new psychopathology

Abstract

This paper reviews the way in which the concept of mental illness that Philippe Pinel proposed at the beginning of the XIX century has influenced the history of Psychiatry and proposes instead a constructivist understanding of mental disorders grounded in a narrative conception of these disorders. From this point of view, we explore possible explanations of mental disorders and the way we can act over them in the phylogenetic evolution of the human species and the ontogenetic development of human beings with a special reference to relational aspects.