Still in operation today,[1] La Borde has been a model in the field of institutional psychotherapy where citizens actively participate in running the facility.
The clinic was founded by Jean Oury, a psychiatrist who previously worked in experimental therapy at Saint-Alban Psychiatric Hospital.
The psychiatric practice borrowed the idea of Hermann Simon that it is necessary to look after the establishment and to look after each citizen, while returning initiative and responsibility to them by developing situations in which they can work and express their creativity.
According to its constitution written by Oury, La Borde was founded on three principles: democratic centralism, a rotating basis for the division of labor, and anti-bureaucracy.
Nicolas Philibert made a film of it entitled La Moindre des choses, released in theaters in March 1997.