GUATTARI, PIERRE-FLIX

born April 30, 1930, Colombe, France died Aug. 29, 1992, near Blois French psychiatrist and philosopher, a leader of the antipsychiatry movement that challenged established thought in psychoanalysis, philosophy, and sociology. Although he was expelled from the Communist Party for opposing the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, Guattari remained a left-wing activist who supported the May 1968 student rebellion in France and was a friend of terrorists despite his avowed rejection of terrorism. As a philosophy student, he joined psychoanalyst Jean Oury at La Borde, an innovative psychiatric clinic where unrestrained patients actively participated in running the facility. Beginning in 1964, he worked with psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan at his cole Freudienne (Freudian School) in Paris. Guattari divided his time between La Borde, his private psychoanalytic practice, and cole Freudienne, until Lacan dissolved the institution in 1980. In 1969 he became associated with Gilles Deleuze, an antiphilosopher with whom he wrote a series of influential books, notably L'Anti-dipe (1972; Anti-Oedipus), Mille plateaux (1980; A Thousand Plateaus), and Qu'est-ce que la philosophie? (1991; What Is Philosophy?). Guattari ran unsuccessfully as a Green Party candidate in regional elections in March 1992.