The Fall 2011 edition of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences has just been relaesed online. It contains articles dealing with Darwin’s theory of emotional expression; the reception of Freudianism in Germany at two different historical moments; and the attack of psychiatric legitimacy in the 1960s. Titles and abstracts below:

“The naturalist and the nuances: Sentimentalism, moral values, and emotional expression in Darwin and the anatomists” (Stéphanie Dupouy)

Comparing Charles Darwin’s account of emotional expression to previous nineteenth-century scientific studies on the same subject, this article intends to locate the exact nature of Darwin’s break in his 1872 book (as well as in his earlier notebooks). In contrast to a standard view that approaches this question in the framework of the creationism/evolutionism dichotomy, I argue that Darwin’s account distinguishes itself primarily by its distance toward the sentimentalist values and moral hierarchies that were traditionally linked with the study of expression—an attitude that is not an inevitable ingredient of the theory of evolution. However, Darwin’s approach also reintroduces another kind of hierarchy in human expression, but one based on attenuation and self-restraint in the exhibition of expressive signs.

“Psychoanalysis is good, synthesis is better: The German reception of Freud, 1930 and 1956” (Anthony D. Kauders)

Frankfurt’s decision to award Freud the Goethe Prize in 1930 as well as the same city’s decision to celebrate Freud’s 100th birthday in 1956 will allow us to trace specific traditions in the German encounter with psychoanalysis. The diachronic approach will show that certain traditions survived well into the late 1950s, at a time when West Germany’s intellectual landscape was otherwise changing on several fronts. Psychoanalysis remained anathema because it did not conform with the idealism and holism prevalent in the academic community.

“The attack of psychiatric legitimacy in the 1960s: Rhetoric and reality” (Gerald N. Grob)

During the 1960s there was a sustained attack on psychiatric legitimacy. Thomas S. Szasz was the most vituperative and best-known critic, but he was by no means alone. Individuals and groups from both extremes of the political spectrum were united in their belief that psychiatry was not a legitimate medical specialty, but one that was devoted to protecting its authority as well as enforcing societal norms associated with an unjust society. The attack on psychiatry, of course, did not occur in a vacuum; numerous social and intellectual currents played major roles. To comprehend such attacks and their consequences requires an understanding of the larger societal context as well as the changes that transformed psychiatry in the post–World War II years.

Fore information, see the JHBS website.