Divergences in American psychiatry during the Depression: Somatic psychiatry, community mental hygiene, and social reconstruction
✍ Scribed by Hans Pols
- Book ID
- 102893261
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2001
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 611 KB
- Volume
- 37
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-5061
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
The differences between somatic psychiatrists and mental hygienists, already apparent earlier, became much more pronounced during the Depression years, partly as a consequence of their different perspectives on this social crisis. Somatic psychiatrists, emboldened by the apparent success of new medical treatment methods, reasserted the central position of the mental hospital within psychiatry, attempted to improve the discipline's position within medicine, and promoted basic research. Mental hygienists, following the ideal of prevention, proposed far‐reaching programs of community mental hygiene to alleviate widespread mental distress. A small group of mental hygienists embraced socialism and advocated measures of radical social reconstruction. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.