Between psychiatry, social work and civil rights: regulating the protection of individuals at the turn of the 1980s

Benoit EYRAUD et Nicolas HENCKES, Between psychiatry, social work and civil rights: regulating the protection of individuals at the turn of the 1980s. The history of the protection of individuals forcibly illustrates the difficulties entailed in regulating interventions on others. The expression itself emerged in the twentieth century at the crossing between two distinct social, judicial and intellectual traditions. On the one hand, it borrows from some of the richest images of the history of the welfare state and social rights; on the other hand, it is also set in a more ancient judicial, political and intellectual tradition, that of civil rights. The contact between these diverse influences explains the difficult evolution of the protection of individuals during the twentieth century. Based on varied materials, this analysis focuses on the genesis and application of the 3rd July 1968 legislation concerning the reform of incapacitated adults' rights and shows how it provided, through State guardianships, the frame for a new perception of the protection of individuals.