The course of lectures “Psychiatric power”, read by Michel Foucault at the College de France in the 1973-1974 academic year, is dedicated to the phenomenon of psychiatric power that emerged in the 19th century. as one of the consequences of the final transition from power-dominance, which characterized medieval society and gradually lost ground throughout the Modern Age, to disciplinary power. Outlining the specifics of psychiatric power, Foucault examines it from two sides: from the point of view of medical technologies of truth and from the point of view of the evolution of the hospital institution. Along these paths, two mutually reinforcing components of psychiatric knowledge-power took shape. But mutual support, according to Foucault, connected and connects to this day two technologies of truth: its probing, characteristic of traditional medicine, and its rational discovery. This is coexistence, which until the end of the 19th century. determined the strengthening of psychiatric power, then led to its crisis, expressed in two movements of the 20th century, carefully separated by Foucault - depsychiatrization and antipsychiatry.