David Freis | University of Augsburg (original) (raw)

Books by David Freis

Publications by David Freis

In 1986,Vienna city council membe rfor health Alois Stacher launched the project ‚Medicine and he... more In 1986,Vienna city council membe rfor health Alois Stacher launched the project ‚Medicine and health 2000‘ to forecast future developments in the medical field and to provide expertise for the reform of medical education and local policymaking. In the following years,some 1,200 physicians and 600 members of other medical professions took part in the project and its numerous working groups. This chapter describes the emergence, the activities, and the main results of the project and shows how these were shaped by earlier approaches to medical futurology and contemporary debates in global health.

European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health, 2022

In March 1970, the first ever medical teleconference connected U.S. aeromedical experts in Housto... more In March 1970, the first ever medical teleconference connected U.S. aeromedical experts in Houston and San Antonio to an audience of 25,000 physicians in congress centres in West Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. As this article shows, the ‘Medizin Interkontinental’ transmission was a costly demonstration of the latest developments in satellite telecommunications and projection technology as well as a stage for space-age visions of the future of medicine in the aftermath of the moon landing. Audio-visual and space technology became, at one at the same time, the medium and the message of medical futurity. As I argue, the teleconference was an audio-visual techno-spectacle that marked the culmination of the German medical community’s infatuation with futurology at the end of the 1960s, but it was also contingent on the concrete interests of the parties involved, which included the German Medical Association, medical futurologists, nasa, the U.S. Air Force, and the Swiss pharmaceutical company Ciba. Decades before teleconferences and telemedicine entered day-to-day medicine, the convergence of new medical and media technology, changes in medical education, Cold War geopolitics, and pharmaceutical sponsorship created a brief glimpse of a technology-based future of medicine that fell apart once these constellations changed in the early 1970s.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2021

During World War I, soldiers from all warring countries suffered from mental disorders caused by ... more During World War I, soldiers from all warring countries suffered from mental disorders caused by the strains and shocks of modern warfare. Military psychiatrists in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were initially overwhelmed by the unexpected numbers of psychiatric patients, and they soon engaged in fierce debates about the etiology and therapy of “war neuroses.” After early therapeutic approaches relying on rest and occupational therapy had failed to yield the necessary results, psychiatry faced increasing pressure by the state and the military. After 1916, the etiological debate coalesced around the diagnosis of “war hysteria,” and psychiatric treatment of war neurotics became dominated by so-called active therapies, which promised to return patients to the frontline or the war industry as quickly and efficiently as possible. War psychiatry became characterized by an unprecedented rationalization of medical treatment, which subordinated the goals of medicine to the needs of the military and the wartime economy. Brutal treatment methods and struggles over pensions led to conflicts between patients and doctors that continued after the war ended.

wissen|leben, 2020

In Corona-Zeiten ändert sich vieles schnell. Mit diesen Links bleiben Sie auf dem aktuellen Stand... more In Corona-Zeiten ändert sich vieles schnell. Mit diesen Links bleiben Sie auf dem aktuellen Stand: Informationen des Rektorats der WWU zum Corona-Virus: www.uni-muenster.de/de/coronavirusinformation.html Liste und Links zu allen Fachschaften an der WWU: www.uni-muenster.de/ZSB/fachschaften Corona-FAQ und Corona-Schutzverordnung des Landes NRW in der jeweils gültigen Fassung: www.land.nrw/corona KURZ NACHGEFRAGT: Mit welchen Erfahrungen aus dem digitalen Sommersemester blicken Sie auf das Wintersemester? WWU-Hausmeister Wolfgang Gellenbeck (l.) und Bernd Kersting statten die Hörsaaleingänge mit Aushängen zu den Hygiene-Vorschriften aus. Foto: WWU -Brigitte Heeke Foto: Privat Foto: Privat Foto: Privat Foto: Career Service Der 15. Oktober ist der internationale Hände-Waschtag -passend zum Erscheinungstermin dieser Zeitung. Grafik: WWU -Designservice

Transcultural Psychiatry, 2020

This article examines Fischl Schneersohn’s (1887–1958) “science of man” as a psychotherapeutic ap... more This article examines Fischl Schneersohn’s (1887–1958) “science of man” as a psychotherapeutic approach situated between modern psychology and Chassidic mysticism. While almost forgotten today, Schneersohn was a prolific writer, well-known in Yiddish-speaking circles as a psychologist, educationalist, novelist, and psychotherapist. As a descendant of an important dynasty of Chassidic rebbes, he grew up inside the Chabad movement, but followed a secular career. The first part of this article traces Schneersohn’s biography from the outskirts of the Russian empire to Germany, Poland, the United States, and Palestine, and shows how his upbringing and historical experiences shaped his psychological works and his self-understanding as educationalist and psychotherapist. The second part examines Schneersohn’s main work, Studies in Psycho-Expedition, which blended Chassidic mysticism and contemporary psychology in a way that was both idiosyncratic and unique. The psycho-sociological “science of man” was a modern psychological and psychotherapeutic approach, using specific methods to gain knowledge about the human mind, and to counteract and treat mental disorders, neuroses, and nervousness. At the same time, however, it was deeply influenced by Chassidic mysticism; revolving around the assumption of a universal human need for spiritual ecstasy. Schneersohn universalised, secularised, and reframed elements of the Kabbalah as a modern psychotherapy. By examining an almost forgotten psychotherapeutic approach outside the mainstream in its specific historical context, this article contributes to the history of the connection between religion and the psy-disciplines, as well as to ongoing debates about the role of spirituality and ecstasy in psychology and psychotherapy.

This article documents the lecture of the recipient of the DGGN’s bi-annual dissertation prize fo... more This article documents the lecture of the recipient of the DGGN’s bi-annual dissertation prize for the doctoral thesis ‘Curing the Soul of the Nation: Psychiatry, Society, and Psycho-Politics in the German-speaking Countries, 1918–1939’ (Department of History and Civilization, European University Institute, Florence 2015). In a first section, I give a summary of the dissertation’s topic, scope, and perspective: the increasing presence of psychiatric experts in the social and political debates of the inter-war period, whose claims to diagnose and to shape society I describe as ‘psycho-politics’. The following section discusses the three interconnected case studies of the thesis: psycho-political diagnoses of the social and political situation at the end of the First World War and the 1918/19 German revolution; the Viennese psychiatrist Erwin Stransky’s project of ‘applied psychiatry’ and the networks that his manifesto for a ‘medical imperialism’ helped to create both in Austria and abroad, and finally, the culmination of various approaches to psychiatric prevention and reform in the international movement for mental hygiene, which emerged in the United States and reached the German-speaking countries in the mid-1920s. I conclude by restating the main findings of my research about the complex relations between psychiatry, society, and politics in the inter-war period.

After his abdication in November 1918, the German emperor Wilhelm II continued to haunt the min... more After his abdication in November 1918, the German emperor Wilhelm II continued to haunt the minds of his people. With the abolition of the lese-majesty laws in the new republic, many topics that were only discussed privately or obliquely before could now be broached openly. One of these topics was the mental state of the exiled Kaiser. Numerous psychiatrists, physicians and laypeople published their diagnoses of Wilhelm in high-circulation newspaper articles, pamphlets, and books shortly after the end of the war. Whether these diagnoses were accurate and whether the Kaiser really was mentally ill became the issue of a heated debate.

This article situates these diagnoses of Wilhelm II in their political context. The authors of these diagnoses – none of whom had met or examined Wilhelm II in person – came from all political camps and they wrote with very different motives in mind. Diagnosing the exiled Kaiser as mentally ill was a kind of exorcism of the Hohenzollern rule, opening the way for either a socialist republic or the hoped-for rule of a new leader. But more importantly, it was a way to discuss and allocate political responsibility and culpability. Psychiatric diagnoses were used to exonerate both the Emperor (for whom the treaty of Versailles provided a tribunal as war criminal) and the German nation. They were also used to blame the Kaiser’s entourage and groups that had allegedly manipulated the weak-willed monarch. Medical concepts became a vehicle for a debate on the key political questions in interwar Germany.

This article explores the history of ‘subordination-authority-relation’ (SAR) psychotherapy, a br... more This article explores the history of ‘subordination-authority-relation’ (SAR) psychotherapy, a brand of psychotherapy largely forgotten today that was introduced and practised in inter-war Vienna by the psychiatrist Erwin Stransky (1877–1962). I situate ‘SAR’ psychotherapy in the medical, cultural and political context of the inter-war period and argue that – although Stransky’s approach had little impact on historical and present-day debates and reached only a very limited number of patients – it provides a particularly clear example for the political dimensions of psychotherapy. In the early 20th century, the emerging field of psychotherapy was largely dominated by Freudian psychoanalysis and its Adlerian and Jungian offshoots. Psychotherapists’ relations with academic psychiatry were often uneasy, but the psychodynamic schools succeeded in establishing independent institutions for training and treatment. However, as this article shows, the gulf between mainstream psychiatry and psychotherapy was not as wide as many histories of the psy-disciplines in the early 20th century suggest. In inter-war Vienna, where these conflicts raged most fiercely, Stransky’s ‘SAR’ psychotherapy was intended as an academic psychiatrist’s response to the challenge posed by the emerging competitors. Moreover, Stransky also proposed a political alternative to the existing psychotherapeutic schools. Whereas psychoanalysis was a liberal project, and Adlerian individual psychology was closely affiliated with the socialist movement, ‘SAR’ psychotherapy with its focus on authority, subordination and social hierarchy tried to translate a right-wing, authoritarian understanding of society into a treatment for nervous disorders.

European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health, 2022

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2021

wissen|leben, 2020

Transcultural Psychiatry, 2020

Schriftenreihe der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Geschichte und Nervenheilkunde 21, 2015

Since the emergence of the discipline, the diagnostic concepts of psychiatry – more than those of... more Since the emergence of the discipline, the diagnostic concepts of psychiatry – more than those of any other medical field – have always been closely connected to normative debates about society at large. This link never was more apparent than in the two decades between the world wars. Amidst the political and social unrest, German-speaking psychiatrists attempted to directly interpret, diagnose, and treat society and politics from the perspective of their own clinical experiences. Leading members of the discipline redefined its boundaries and its area of authority to target larger populations beyond the mentally ill, and even the body politic as a whole. While this expansion of psychiatry’s area of expertise in the first third of the twentieth century has been noted by numerous scholars in the field, this is the first study that analyzes this process systematically and comprehensively.

Using the concept of “psycho-politics” to describe the changing relation between psychiatrists and society in the period between the world wars, I maintain that these developments were neither monolithic nor disembodied processes. By situating different approaches in historical context, the thesis demonstrates how the social and political expansion of psychiatric expertise was motivated by very different reasons and took very different forms. I discuss three examples in detail: the overt pathologization of the 1918/19 revolution and its protagonists by right-wing German psychiatrists; the project of professional expansionism under the label of “applied psychiatry” in interwar Vienna; and the attempt to unite and implement different approaches to psychiatric prophylaxis in the German-speaking branches of the international movement for “mental hygiene.”

Throughout these three interconnected case studies, I make a point for the importance of individual agency in the history of the psy-disciplines. I use the example of a number of eminent psychiatrists to show how the projects mentioned above were linked to their individual biographies and careers, and how their approaches were shaped by individual experiences of the political events in the first third of the twentieth century. Moreover, the study contributes to a broader understanding of the twentieth-century history of the psy-disciplines in at least three ways. First, I unearth the almost forgotten histories of some of the most important scholars and ideas that defined psychiatry in the first half of the twentieth century. Second, I explore the early history of some the concepts that still shape the field to the present day, namely mental health, deinstitutionalization, and psychiatric prophylaxis, as well as the history of psychiatric notions of social and political life that still circulate today. Third, I also examine psychiatry’s utopian promises, and show how the idea that the knowledge of the maladies of the human mind could pave the way to a better society could cut across contemporary political divides. The loftiest promises and the worst abuses of psychiatry were more closely connected than one might expect.

European University Institute
Department of History and Civilization

Defense date: 11 December 2015
Examining Board: Professor Dirk Moses, EUI; Professor Alexander Etkind, EUI; Professor Martin Kohlrausch, KU Leuven; Professor Mitchell G. Ash, University of Vienna.

On every diagnosis follows a prognosis. Medicine, in theory and practice, has always had one eye ... more On every diagnosis follows a prognosis. Medicine, in theory and practice, has always had one eye on the future. With the beginning of a modern medicine and the emergence of a narrative of constant scientific and technological progress, medical futures were no longer limited to individual patients, but extended to the development of the discipline as a whole. After the end of the Second World War, medicine entered a new relation to its own future: As medicine grew and fragmented into a range of highly specialised techno-sciences and became part of encompassing health care policies, it was also met with new expectations of its present and future ability to treat, heal, and prevent. Against the backdrop of a pervasive and enthusiastic belief in scientific and technological progress, present advances appeared as harbingers of a future medicine that would not only be able to cure ailments that were currently incurable, but bring an end to sickness and death. At the same time, other anticipated developments – technological, social, and demographic change, globalisation, nuclear warfare, and ecological crises – were perceived as challenges for the medicine of the future.

In my paper, I will present the outlines of a larger project that will explore the history of past medical futures in cold-war Germany. I will ask what the history of past futures and medical history can contribute to each other, and will discuss a number of questions in perspectives. I will use the example of the ‘Commission for Prospective Inquiries into the Medicine of the Year 2000’ of the North-Württemberg medical association, which was active from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s, to explore which expectations and challenges medical professionals from different fields of healthcare attached to the symbolic deadline of the year 2000, which fields and technologies were considered as trend-setting, and which changes were forecast in the relation of medicine, politics, and society.

Mit dem Ersten Weltkrieg wurde psychische Krankheit zur Massenerfahrung. Wie eine stetig

So, wie auf die Diagnose die Prognose folgt, gehörte der Blick in die Zukunft stets fest zur medi... more So, wie auf die Diagnose die Prognose folgt, gehörte der Blick in die Zukunft stets fest zur medizinischen Praxis. Mit dem Beginn einer modernen Medizin und dem Aufkommen eines eingängigen Fortschrittsnarrativs im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts erweiterte sich dieser Blick zunehmend über das Schicksal einzelner PatientInnen hinaus auf die Zukunft der Medizin selbst. Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg trat das Verhältnis der Medizin zu ihrer eigenen Zukunft und zur Zukunft der Gesellschaft jedoch in eine neue Phase ein. Eine Medizin, die zunehmend zur hochspezialisierten Technowissenschaft und zum Teil einer umfassenden Gesundheitspolitik wurde, sah sich zugleich mit neuen Erwartungshorizonten konfrontiert. Im Kontext einer allgemeineren Technik- und Wissenschaftseuphorie erschienen aktuelle Fortschritte in der Forschung als Vorboten einer zukünftigen Medizin, die nicht nur bestimmte Krankheiten der Gegenwart, sondern Krankheit und Tod selbst beherrschbar machen würde. Gleichzeitig wurden auch antizipierte gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen – technischer, sozialer und demographischer Wandel, Globalisierung, Atomkrieg und Umweltkrise – als kommende Herausforderungen begriffen, auf die sich die Medizin bereits in der Gegenwart vorbereiten müsse.

In meinem Vortrag wird es mir zunächst darum gehen, ein geplantes Forschungsvorhaben zur Geschichte medizinischer Zukunftsvorstellungen in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts in seinen Konturen vorzustellen und die zentralen medizinhistorischen Perspektiven und Fragestellungen einer historischen Zukunftsforschung zu skizzieren. Beispielhaft werde ich anhand der Publikationen der Kommission „Prospektive Untersuchungen über die Medizin im Jahr 2000“ der Bezirksärztekammer Nordwürttemberg zeigen, welche Erwartungshorizonte und Herausforderungen die Ärzteschaft der 1970er Jahre mit dem Jahr 2000 verband, welche Fachgebiete und Techniken als zukunftsweisend begriffen wurden, und welche Veränderungen im Verhältnis von Medizin, Politik und Gesellschaft dabei vorausgesagt wurden.

Auch nach seiner Abdankung und Flucht im November 1918 blieb Wilhelm II. im Fokus der deutschen Ö... more Auch nach seiner Abdankung und Flucht im November 1918 blieb Wilhelm II. im Fokus der deutschen Öffentlichkeit. Nun, da die offene Kritik am exilierten Kaiser nicht mehr als Majestätsbeleidigung verfolgt werden konnte, entbrannte eine Debatte über seinen Geisteszustand: In der Presse, in Fachzeitschriften, in auflagestarken Pamphleten und in Büchern publizierten zahlreiche angesehene Psychiater, Ärzte und Laien ihre Einschätzungen der Psyche des letzten Hohenzollern-Kaisers. Die Zulässigkeit und die Implikationen dieser Diagnosen wurden zum Gegenstand einer vehement geführten Debatte, in der sich psychiatrische Kategorien und politische Polemik untrennbar vermischten.

Wie ich zeige, waren die psychiatrischen Diagnosen Wilhelms II. im politischen Kontext der unmittelbaren Nachkriegszeit des Ersten Weltkriegs mehr als nur antimonarchistische Polemiken. Die Autoren dieser Texte – von denen keiner den Kaiser persönlich untersucht hatte – kamen aus unterschiedlichen politischen Lagern und verfolgten politische Motive, die kaum verschiedener sein konnten. Als symbolischer Schlussstrich unter die Herrschaft der Hohenzollern konnte die psychiatrische Diagnose des Kaisers die politische Bühne ebenso für eine sozialistische Republik öffnen wie für die erhoffte Herrschaft eines neuen Führers. Gleichzeitig wurde das psychiatrische Vokabular zum Medium einer Debatte über politische Verantwortlichkeit und Schuld. Vor dem Hintergrund der so genannten „Kriegsschuldfrage“ dienten psychiatrische Diagnosen des Kaisers der öffentlichen Exkulpation des Monarchen und seines Volkes, und konnten zugleich dazu verwendet werden, stattdessen Individuen und Gruppen, die den willensschwachen Kaiser manipuliert hätten, als Verantwortliche für den Krieg und seine Folgen anzuklagen. In der Diagnose des Geisteszustands Wilhelms II. wurden medizinische Konzepte zum Vehikel für eine der zentralen politischen Frage nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg.

After his abdication in November 1918, the German Emperor Wilhelm II continued to haunt the minds... more After his abdication in November 1918, the German Emperor Wilhelm II continued to haunt the minds of his people. With the abolition of the lèse-majesté laws in the new republic, many topics that were only discussed privately or obliquely before could now be broached openly. One of these topics was the mental state of the exiled Kaiser. Numerous psychiatrists, physicians, and laypeople published their diagnoses of Wilhelm in high-circulation newspaper articles, pamphlets, and books shortly after the end of the war. Whether these diagnoses were accurate and whether the Kaiser really was a madman became the issue of a heated debate.

But what did these psychiatric diagnoses mean in the political context of the immediate post-war period? The authors of these texts – none of whom had actually met or examined Wilhelm II in person – came from all political camps, and they wrote with very different motives in mind. As I will show in my paper, the political implications were more complex than one might expect. Diagnosing the exiled Kaiser as mentally ill was a kind of exorcism of the Hohenzollern rule, opening the way for either a socialist republic or the hoped-for rule of a new leader. But more importantly, it was a way to discuss and allocate political responsibility and culpability. Psychiatric diagnoses were used to exonerate both the Emperor (for whom the treaty of Versailles provided a tribunal as war criminal) and the German nation. They were also used to blame the Kaiser's entourage and groups that had allegedly manipulated the weak-willed monarch for the war and its outcome. Medical concepts, in other words, became a vehicle to debate one of the key political questions of inter-war Germany.

While almost forgotten today, Fischl Schneersohn (1887-1958) may be one of the most interesting ... more While almost forgotten today, Fischl Schneersohn (1887-1958) may be one of the most interesting figures in the history of the psy-disciplines in the twentieth century. What makes Schneersohn’s works unique is his combination of contemporary psychological and psychiatric research with Jewish theology. Many pioneers in the field were of Jewish origin, but unlike for his secular colleagues, religious Judaism played a major role for Schneersohn, who had grown up in the Hasidic Chabad movement and had become a rabbi at the age of 15. After studying medicine in Berlin and Petrograd, he headed a department for child psychology in Kiev, where he examined and treated traumatized Jewish in the aftermath of the First World War and the Kiev pogroms. It was in this context that he first developed ideas for a ‘socio-psychological popular hygiene’ to overcome the collective mental effects of the war. After moving to Berlin in the early 1920s, Schneersohn published extensively on individual and collective dimensions of mental illness. He proposed a new psycho-sociological ‘science of man’ (mentsh-visnshaft), which would examine human life in its totality, and find new ways to prevent mental illness and to create a truly human society based on the insights of psychology and psychiatry.

In my talk, I will sketch out Schneersohn’s biography before focusing on his main work, Der veg tsum mentsh (‘the way to man’), which was published in Yiddish in 1927, and appeared as Studies in Psycho-Expedition in the U.S. in 1929. Although Schneersohn’s connection of psychological concepts with elements of Hasidic mysticism was singular, three more general arguments about mental prophylaxis in the twentieth century can be made: First, his work provides a particularly clear example for how the notion that mental illness might be prevented pushed psychiatric and psychological ideas into the social and political sphere. Second, it is also an outstanding example for a more widespread contemporary tendency to perceive mental hygiene as a kind of secular religion. Third, it shows how psychiatric prophylaxis was often perceived as more that just a way to maintain health as an absence of illness, but as a way to achieve a utopian state of ‘true’ mental health.

25. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Nervenheilkunde, Würzburg, 2 Octob... more 25. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Nervenheilkunde, Würzburg, 2 October 2015.

Proposed panel: Jewish Mysticism and the Psy-Disciplines We are putting together a proposal for o... more Proposed panel: Jewish Mysticism and the Psy-Disciplines We are putting together a proposal for one session at the World Congress of Jewish Studies focused on jewish mysticism and the psy-disciplines. We are looking for participants for a session on the relation between jewish mysticism and the psy-disciplines. We are looking for contributions discussing the influence of Jewish mystical thought on different psy-disciplines-psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy-in past and present, and for contributions that use perspectives of these disciplines to approach different aspects of Jewish mysticism, including mystical experiences, movements, texts and individuals.

Modern society cannot function without experts and yet we increasingly question the authority of ... more Modern society cannot function without experts and yet we increasingly question the authority of those who advise us. The essays in this collection explore our reliance on experts within a historical context and across a wide range of fields, including agriculture, engineering, health sciences and labour management. Contributors argue that experts were highly aware of their audiences and used performance to gain both scientific and popular support.

ix INTRODUCTION 1 Escaping the Straightjacket of Confinement: The History of TwentiethCentury Psy... more ix INTRODUCTION 1 Escaping the Straightjacket of Confinement: The History of TwentiethCentury Psychiatry 10 Histories of the Asylum 10 Deinstitutionalization 12 Between Shell Shock and “Euthanasia” 14 The Fluid Boundaries of Disciplines 19 Perspectives on Psychiatry, Society, and Politics 23 Non-Political Politics, Science, and Society 23 Psycho-Politics 27 CHAPTER I – DIAGNOSING THE REVOLUTION 35 Introduction 35 The Revolutionary Psychopaths 41 A National Nervous Breakdown 50 Psychiatric Expertise in the Interwar Period 64 CHAPTER II – APPLYING PSYCHIATRY IN INTERWAR VIENNA 7

Psycho-Politics between the World Wars, 2019

This chapter follows Erwin Stransky’s ‘applied psychiatry’ further into the inter-war period, whe... more This chapter follows Erwin Stransky’s ‘applied psychiatry’ further into the inter-war period, when the idea increasingly began to attract attention beyond Vienna. As applied psychiatry gradually turned into an interdisciplinary endeavour, it lost most of its overtly right-wing political overtones. Instead, the ‘application’ of psychiatric knowledge was were the psy-ences encountered new topics and new aspects of society, as psychiatrists debated how art, literature, society, politics, and historiography could be explained and changed by their discipline. In Switzerland, a publication series on applied psychiatry was were some of the most influential psychiatric texts of the twentieth century, among them Rorschach’s study on ‘psycho-diagnostic’ inkblots, appeared. Back in Vienna, ‘applied psychopathology’, as the project had since been renamed, entered a contentious relationship with psychoanalysis, which included fierce polemics as well as the participation of current and former psy...

Psycho-Politics between the World Wars, 2019

During the inter-war period, mental hygiene grew into an international movement. In Europe, menta... more During the inter-war period, mental hygiene grew into an international movement. In Europe, mental hygiene was eagerly appropriated by reform-minded psychiatrists seeking a more proactive role for their discipline. In Germany, this became an uneasy coalition of academic psychiatrists who wanted to extend the social authority of their discipline, often favouring eugenic interventions, and reform-oriented asylum psychiatrists, who sought to improve the institutional treatment of the mentally ill. The 1930 congress in Washington, DC marked the heyday of mental hygiene, but rifts between the German delegation and their international colleagues already were visible. The world economic crisis of the late 1920s and the rise of Nazism in the 1930s severely impacted the international movement, as the ideological gap between German psychiatrists’ focus on eugenics and the American concept of adaptation widened. By 1933, German mental hygiene was virtually indistinguishable from racial hygiene...

Psycho-Politics between the World Wars, 2019

This chapter focuses on a biography that, like few others, exemplifies the radical politicisation... more This chapter focuses on a biography that, like few others, exemplifies the radical politicisation of psychiatry in the period between the world wars. Although ignored by historians, Erwin Stransky was an eminent figure in Viennese psychiatry. From the end of the First World War, he began to advocate the expansion of psychiatric authority into every aspect of modern life, including ‘racial hygiene’, law, and politics, effectively equating psychiatric expertise and political leadership in the name of a new ‘medical imperialism’. Stransky continued his quest for ‘applied psychiatry’ until his death in 1962 and became one of the most vocal proponents of mental hygiene in Austria. I situate Stransky’s project of applied psychiatry in the broader history of medicine and politics in post-war Vienna, exploring the unresolved tensions between his Jewish origins and his German nationalist views, and retracing the polemics that erupted around his expansionist understanding of psychiatry. Using...

This chapter shifts the focus to the psycho-political project that had the most direct influence ... more This chapter shifts the focus to the psycho-political project that had the most direct influence on policy and patients from the second half of the 1920s: ‘mental hygiene’. Setting the stage for the following chapter and introducing some of the main ideas and protagonists, this chapter traces the history of preventive psychiatry from the first half of the nineteenth century to the aftermath of the First World War. In particular, it examines the lives and works of three pioneers of preventive psychiatry in the German-speaking countries around the turn of the century, Auguste Forel, Emil Kraepelin, and Robert Sommer. Although their respective approaches were grounded in very different political ideologies, for all three, advocating a new prophylactic role for psychiatry meant changing the relationship between medicine, society, and the state. The idea of preventive psychiatry was inherently political, but it cut through the usual categories of political history.