This blog follows the history of psychiatry

The New York Times this past week featured an interesting piece, previewing an upcoming special issue of the journal American Psychologist.  The issue will feature analysis and assessments from psychologists of the shortcomings of psychology and psychotherapy revealed over the past ten years since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.  Among other things, notes Times reporter Benedict Carey, studies show that mental health interventions were not terribly well coordinated in the aftermath of the attacks.

Chaos reigned in the New York area after the twin towers fell, both on the streets and in the minds of many mental health professionals who felt compelled to help but were unsure how. Therapists by the dozens volunteered their services, eager to relieve the suffering of anyone who looked stricken. Freudian analysts installed themselves at fire stations, unbidden and unpaid, to help devastated firefighters. Employee assistance programs offered free therapy, warning of the consequences of letting people grieve on their own.

Some given treatment undoubtedly benefited, researchers say, but others became annoyed or more upset. At least one commentator referred to therapists’ response as ‘trauma tourism.’

‘We did a case study in New York and couldn’t really tell if people had been helped by the providers — but the providers felt great about it,’ said Patricia Watson, a co-author of one of the articles and associate director of the terrorism and disaster programs at the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress. ‘It makes sense; we know that altruism makes people feel better.’

A new issue of the periodical Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte is now out and it includes one article dealing with the history of psychiatry.

“Documenting and Describing. The Epistemic Function of Psychiatric Records, their Archiving and Reinterpretation into Case Histories” by Sophie Ledebur

The paper attempts to reconstruct the writing of published case histories. Due to the establishment of a scientific classification system in psychiatry there were at the Charité several changes from the late 1870s onwards: (1) Not only was the documentation in the clinical records altered significantly, but also (2) the archive was reorganized into a double filing system and (3) the casuistic made a development from describing seldom or sensational cases into a mode which aimed to unfold psychiatric theory through ‘typical cases’. Original medical records, the internal documentation of psychiatric observation, will be compared to their published version. Both, the narrative of a case study and the documentation in the clinical records reveal performative processes of observation and documentation.