*Editor’s Introduction In Cuernavaca, at the fourth Alternatives to Psychiatry Conference in 1978, the Mexican journalist and critic Carl
Maybe people on here into psychoanalysis will be interested in this: I translated a text by Sylvia Marcos from the first ever Latin American Conference for Alternatives to Psychiatry held in 1981 in Cuernavaca, Mexico. I also wrote a history of the conference and how it emerged from a milieu consisting of Liberation Theologists, revolutionaries, and radical psychiatrists (Guattari, Basaglia). I find this history and the thinking going on at the time to be endlessly fascinating. And maybe with the popularity of institutional psychotherapy and Tosquelles in recent years, others will find this interesting as well. Sylvia Marcos herself was a Mexican-born, Harvard trained psychologist who later joined the Zapatistas in Chiapas. I was lucky enough to be in conversation with her and get the blessing from her to do this translation. She is a genius and her work should be taught more in English! But I do think that so much of this thinking falls outside of the purview of the academy due to its earnest engagement in trying to weave national liberation movements, psychiatry, and autochthonous Indoamerican epistemes together. At the same time, I think that her work and the work of the Latin American Network for Alternatives to Psychiatry is more important than ever as people move towards more political understandings of mental health.
