Posts Tagged ‘ 20th century ’
On the second of June 2017 a symposium was held in Amsterdam about madness in civilization. The conference aim was to evaluate the history of madness in the Netherlands, not only focussing on the historiography of this field but also on new and ongoing research. A recap of the symposium can be found here.
A new issue of Sciences sociales et Santé has appeared and includes two articles that could be of interest to h-madness readers.
Nicolas Henckes, Entre tutelle et assistance : le débat sur la réforme de la loi de 1838 sur les aliénés des années 1870 aux années 1910.
Jean-Christophe Coffin, L’exploration de l’assistance psychiatrique française. Jalons pour une reformulation.
The European Association for the History of Medicine and Health organises the conference The Body Politics: States in the History of Medicine and Health, which will be held from the 30th of August until the 2nd of september in Bucharest. The provisional conference programme has appeared online and incorporates a few sessions that could be of interest to H-Madness readers (see below). For a full overview of all the panels see here.
The conference Medikalisierte Kindheiten. Die neue Sorge um das Kind vom ausgehenden 19. bis ins späte 20. Jahrhundert could be of interest to H-Madness readers. The conference will take place from 29.06.2017 until 01.07.2017 and will be held at Innsbruck, Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft. You can register here. The abstract and programme are as follows:
Abstract
Die jüngere Forschung im Umfeld der Auseinandersetzungen über den gewaltförmigen Umgang mit Kindern und Jugendlichen in Fürsorgeerziehungseinrichtungen der Nachkriegsjahre stellt die Sorge um das “erziehungsschwierige” Kind als ein trans-disziplinäres Projekt der Moderne heraus, in welchem differente Wissensordnungen wie die Psychiatrie und die Pädiatrie, die Pädagogik und die Psychologie, die Kriminologie und Jurisdiktion sowie die Sexual- und Bevölkerungswissenschaften das diskursiv auszuhandeln begannen, was am Kind als gesund oder krank, normal oder abweichend anzusehen sei. Voreinem medikalen Hintergrund und in wechselnder Leaderschaft prägten diese Wissenschaftszweige die Debatten über Kinderschutz und Kindergesundheit und fanden in Schulen, Heimen, Kliniken, Kinderbeobachtungsstellen oder Einrichtungen der Säuglings- und Kinderfürsorge ihre räumliche Gestalt und institutionalisierte Wirkung. Ihr regulatorisches Interesse richtete sich auf den Körper, den Geist und die Ausdrucksformen von Kindern (und Jugendlichen) in Entwicklungs- und/oder Erziehungs-schwierigkeiten. Als besonders einflussreich haben sich dabei die medizinischen Fächer Pädiatrie und Psychiatrie sowie hybride Teilfächer wie die Heil- oder Sonderpädagogik erwiesen.
The second issue of 2017 of History of Psychiatry is now available and could be of interest to H-madness readers. The issue includes the following articles:
Philippe Huneman, From a religious view of madness to religious mania: the Encyclopédie, Pinel, Esquirol.
This paper focuses on the shift from a concept of insanity understood in terms of religion to another (as entertained by early psychiatry, especially in France) according to which it is believed that forms of madness tinged by religion are difficult to cure. The traditional religious view of madness, as exemplified by Pascal (inter alia), is first illustrated by entries from the Encyclopédie. Then the shift towards a medical view of madness, inspired by Vitalistic physiology, is mapped by entries taken from the same publication. Firmed up by Pinel, this shift caused the abandonment of the religious view. Esquirol considered religious mania to be a vestige from the past, but he also believed that mental conditions carrying a religious component were difficult to cure.
The debate on the causes and the nature of pellagra in Italy during the nineteenth century resembles and evokes the similar debate on General Paralysis of the Insane (GPI) that was growing at the same time in the United Kingdom. Pellagra and GPI had a massive and virulent impact on the populations of Italy and the UK, respectively, and contributed to a great extent to the increase and overcrowding of the asylum populations in these countries. This article compares the two illnesses by examining the features of their nosographic positioning, aetiology and pathogenesis. It also documents how doctors arrived at the diagnoses of the two diseases and how this affected their treatment.
The book The Recovery Revolution. The Battle Over Addiction Treatment in the United States, written by Claire D. Clark, could be of interest to H-Madness readers. The abstract reads:
In the 1960s, as illegal drug use grew from a fringe issue to a pervasive public concern, a new industry arose to treat the addiction epidemic. Over the next five decades, the industry’s leaders promised to rehabilitate the casualties of the drug culture even as incarceration rates for drug-related offenses climbed. In this history of addiction treatment, Claire D. Clark traces the political shift from the radical communitarianism of the 1960s to the conservatism of the Reagan era, uncovering the forgotten origins of today’s recovery movement.
Based on extensive interviews with drug-rehabilitation professionals and archival research, The Recovery Revolution locates the history of treatment activists’ influence on the development of American drug policy. Synanon, a controversial drug-treatment program launched in California in 1958, emphasized a community-based approach to rehabilitation. Its associates helped develop the therapeutic community (TC) model, which encouraged peer confrontation as a path to recovery. As TC treatment pioneers made mutual aid profitable, the model attracted powerful supporters and spread rapidly throughout the country. The TC approach was supported as part of the Nixon administration’s “law-and-order” policies, favored in the Reagan administration’s antidrug campaigns, and remained relevant amid the turbulent drug policies of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. While many contemporary critics characterize American drug policy as simply the expression of moralizing conservatism or a mask for racial oppression, Clark recounts the complicated legacy of the “ex-addict” activists who turned drug treatment into both a product and a political symbol that promoted the impossible dream of a drug-free America.
The new issue of the History of the Human Sciences on Psychotherapy in Historical Perspective could be of interest to H-madness readers. The issue is edited by Sarah Marks and contains the following articles:
Sarah Marks, Introduction: Psychotherapy in historical perspective
This article will briefly explore some of the ways in which the past has been used as a means to talk about psychotherapy as a practice and as a profession, its impact on individuals and society, and the ethical debates at stake. It will show how, despite the multiple and competing claims about psychotherapy’s history and its meanings, historians themselves have, to a large degree, not attended to the intellectual and cultural development of many therapeutic approaches. This absence has the potential consequence of implying that therapies have emerged as value-free techniques, outside of a social, economic and political context. The relative neglect of psychotherapy, by contrast with the attention historians have paid to other professions, particularly psychiatry, has also underplayed its societal impact. This article will foreground some of the instances where psychotherapy has become an object of emerging historical interest, including the new research that forms the substance of this special issue of History of the Human Sciences.
Mind Hacks
