One of H-madness contributors and a doctoral researcher at the University of Luxembourg, Eva Andersen, has written a note on the dutch academic network for medical history “History, Health & Healing” that may be of interest to h-madness readers. Titled “Going beyond the scientific persona of the psychiatrist“, the first two paragraphs of her note are as follows:

 “Being a historian of psychiatry, I often focus on the psychiatrist as an expert or chiefly pay attention to the scientific changes that took place. Yet, behind these psychiatrists’ professional façade, stood their family and friends. I – and probably several historians of medicine, psychiatry and science with me – often forget that they too could influence developments.

Accidently stumbling upon archival documents from the Italian psychiatrist Guilio Cesare Ferrari made me contemplate about the friendships psychiatrists formed with their colleagues and the role their families played during their careers as asylum physicians. To what extent did these relationships, even across borders, influence medical and psychiatric practices or shape the creation of institutions? Were these relationships defining for the cooperation forged between psychiatrists? In this column I briefly want to reflect on the possible impact and meaning of this forgotten component”.