La Borde

The La Borde clinic opened in 1951 by Jean Oury, a young psychiatrist who gained invaluable experience in experimental therapy at the famous Saint-Alban Psychiatric Hospital, the result of a WWII preponderance on the advancement of the movement of institutional psychotherapy. Influenced by very innovative therapists such as Paul Balvet, Luciene Bonnafé, the philosopher Georges Canguihem, and the poet Paul Eluard, Oury's clinic was born in lineage of a psychiatric practice which would be ever-searching in its analysis of the relations between the "patients" and the "psychotherapists". It borrowed the idea of Herman Simone that it is at the same time necessary to look after the establishment and to look after each patient, while returning initiative and responsibility to him, by developing the situations of work and creativity. From François Tosquelles, Paul Bavet, Andre Chaurand and Lucien Bonnafé it also took the lead in the development of a new practice of the psychiatry, in which "care, research and formation" are integrated in a collective step.

The La Borde Clinic, near the town of Cour-Cheverny in the Loire Valley of France, was established with the goal of becoming everything the word asylum once meant: a shelter, a place of refuge, a sanctuary. Still in operation today, La Borde has been a defining model in the field of institutional psychotherapy. It is an innovative psychiatric clinic where patients in full liberty actively participate in the running the facility.

Since the mid-50s Felix Guattari became a fixture at La Borde, revolutionizing its practice and organization and producing alongside Oury a large body of theoretical work on the practice and theory of Schizoanalysis, set in practice at La Borde, and popularized in the scandalous book of 1972 Anti-Oedipus.

Among the many distinctions that make La Borde so special is the annual summer tradition in which the "boarders" and staff work together to perform a play, choosing from among the world's greatest classical works.