Doing Psychiatry in Postwar Europe: Practices, Routines and Experiences - Hardcover

by Gundula Gahlen (Editor), Volker Hess (Editor), Marianna Scarfone (Editor)

Doing psychiatry engages with the history of European psychiatry in the second half of the twentieth century through a close and fresh look at the practices that contributed to reshape the mental health field. Case studies from across Europe allow readers to appreciate how new 'ways of doing' contributed to transform the field, beyond the watchwords of deinstitutionalisation, the prescription of neuroleptics, centrality of patients and overcoming of asylum-era habits. Through a variety of sources and often adopting a small-scale perspective, the chapters take a close look at the way new practices emerged and at how they installed themselves, eventually facing resistance, injecting new purposes and contributing to enlarging psychiatry's fields of expertise, therefore blurring its once-more-defined boundaries.

An electronic version of this title is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) licence and can be downloaded from manchesterhive.
DOI: 10.7765/9781526173485

Back Jacket

European psychiatry underwent numerous transformations in the second half of the twentieth century, and a variety of practices were experienced and routinised. Doing psychiatry in postwar Europe engages with this history through a close and fresh look at the practices that contributed to reshaping the mental health field. It uses case studies from across Europe to illustrate how new 'ways of doing' transformed the field beyond the watchwords of deinstitutionalisation, introduction of neuroleptics, centrality of patients and overcoming of asylum-era habits.

Through a variety of sources and often adopting a small-scale perspective, the volume takes a close look at the way new practices took shape and at how they installed themselves, eventually facing resistance, injecting new purposes, and contributing to enlarging psychiatry's fields of expertise, therefore blurring its once-more-defined boundaries. Studying psychiatry in its making and unmaking in the second half of the twentieth century allows one to see it less as a science grounded in theory or laboratory research than as an art of doing, which can be understood as the outcome of practices.

Giving significant attention to the actors of the psychiatric field, from doctors, patients and nurses to families, as well as other figures such as architects and sociologists, Doing psychiatry contributes to a renewal of the historiography of contemporary European psychiatry.

Author Biography

Gundula Gahlen is a research associate at Ludwig-Maximilians-University.
Volker Hess is chair of the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Charité Medical School.
Marianna Scarfone is an associate professor at Strasbourg University.
Henriette Voelker is a research associate at the Institute for the History of Medicine.