This paper is a reflection on the origins as well as conceptual and historical bases of the production of subjectivity by the subject that is considered insane. The importance of the concept of mental alienation in the shaping of the social place of insanity in modern society is analyzed in parallel with the constitution of an alienated subject, incapable of subjectivity or desire: a non-subject of medicalized insanity. Then, after an elaboration about the genealogy of subjectivity, a reflection is presented on the current practices in the field of mental health that aim at the collective construction of the subject of insanity no longer as an alienated subject but as a protagonist, which means a new social relationship with insanity.
Mental health; Insanity; Subjectivity