Marion Kenworthy and values in the history of American child psychiatry.

Abstract

Marion Kenworthy (1891-1980) was a pioneering child psychiatrist, mental hygiene and child guidance leader, and early member of the American Orthopsychiatric Association (now the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice). Throughout her illustrious career, Kenworthy advocated for values in the emerging field of child psychiatry, especially around prevention of mental illness, interdisciplinary collaboration, and social justice. Kenworthy's history provides not only an illustration of the importance of values in the work related to children but also a reminder of perspectives that can get lost in the contemporary focus on individual diagnoses and treatments (especially with pharmaceuticals). The social, cultural, and economic problems encountered by Kenworthy and her contemporaries remain as challenges in the present and the future, ones that require ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration and advocacy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).