Yes, Frantz Fanon can indeed be seen as part of François Tosquelles’ intellectual legacy, along with Félix Guattari. Tosquelles, a Catalan psychiatrist and pioneer of institutional psychotherapy, had a profound influence on the way mental health care was approached, emphasizing the integration of culture, politics, and social dynamics into the treatment of mental illness.
Fanon worked under Tosquelles at Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole during his residency and was deeply influenced by his ideas. Tosquelles’ approach challenged traditional psychiatry by addressing the socio-cultural context of mental illness and advocating for the therapeutic role of institutions themselves. This focus on the interplay between culture, society, and individual psyche resonated with Fanon, who later applied these insights in his revolutionary critique of colonialism, particularly in Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. Fanon extended Tosquelles’ ideas by exploring how colonial systems shaped mental health, framing colonized individuals’ psychological suffering as deeply rooted in systemic violence and cultural alienation.
Similarly, Guattari, who co-developed schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, was influenced by institutional psychotherapy through his work at La Borde Clinic, an institution also shaped by Tosquelles’ methods. Guattari expanded these ideas by merging them with political activism and poststructuralist philosophy, addressing how systems of power and institutions affect subjectivity.
Both Fanon and Guattari, while diverging in their focus—Fanon on decolonization and Guattari on poststructuralist critiques—drew on the foundational insights of Tosquelles regarding the interconnectedness of individual psyche and socio-political structures. Tosquelles’ emphasis on culture and society as intrinsic to understanding and treating mental illness thus finds continuity in their work.
