History of PsychiatryPub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2026-01-22DOI: 10.1177/0957154X251393701
Felicia Gordon
{"title":"Scientific objectivity and social mores: Paternity testing, illegitimacy and misogyny in Constance Pascal's 'La Goutte de Sang' (1935-1936).","authors":"Felicia Gordon","doi":"10.1177/0957154X251393701","DOIUrl":"10.1177/0957154X251393701","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article examines the French historical, scientific, social and biographical background to Constance Pascal's filmscript 'La Goutte de Sang' concerning the search for a reliable paternity test. The philosophical argument is between adherence to scientific truth against entrenched social custom. Pascal's filmscript highlights routine misogyny in the scientific workplace and the injustices to women and children of male sexual irresponsibility. I analyse the relation between Pascal's personal life, her psychiatric career and the filmscript's critique of scientific efforts at social reform, concluding with her enduring belief in the value of science based on humane principles.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"159-173"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13237209/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146031347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
History of PsychiatryPub Date : 2026-06-01Epub Date: 2026-03-08DOI: 10.1177/0957154X251392921
Georg Bornemann, Thomas Becker, Robert Feustel, Heiner Fangerau, Felicitas Söhner, Sven Speerforck
{"title":"Reform of care for people with mental illness in two German states before reunification: An oral history approach.","authors":"Georg Bornemann, Thomas Becker, Robert Feustel, Heiner Fangerau, Felicitas Söhner, Sven Speerforck","doi":"10.1177/0957154X251392921","DOIUrl":"10.1177/0957154X251392921","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Between 1960 and 1985 efforts to reform psychiatry took place in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Although to differing degrees, these efforts showed parallel approaches, for example with regard to negotiations on coercion or the participation of mentally ill people. Oral history interviews conducted with contemporary witnesses from both states suggested changes in the direction of the reform of psychiatry and progress in social participation during the period. Contrasting historical sources with the interviews reveals a dissonance that can be understood in terms of discourse theory. Initial results indicate a convergence, across different political systems, toward improving social participation. Future research would benefit from cross reading this study's results with other sources.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"193-210"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13237210/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147378984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Agustín Artese, Alexander J Smith, Robert van Voren, Juan Graña, Dinesh Bhugra, Michael Liebrenz
{"title":"\"One more front in the dirty war\": The political instrumentalisation of psychiatry and the involvement of mental health professionals in state-sponsored human rights abuses during Argentina's civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983).","authors":"Agustín Artese, Alexander J Smith, Robert van Voren, Juan Graña, Dinesh Bhugra, Michael Liebrenz","doi":"10.1177/0957154X261449447","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X261449447","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper examines the instrumentalisation of psychiatric procedures and the complicity of physicians and mental health professionals in the state-sponsored terror of Argentina's civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983). Hitherto, these episodes have remained largely underexplored in broader historiography, as have their implications for modern psychiatric ethics. Drawing on archival records, victim testimonies, and secondary sources, this paper outlines how mental health expertise and psychiatric institutions were implicated in the junta's campaigns to subjugate perceived \"subversive\" tendencies in Argentinian society. To that end, two case descriptions are used to illustrate distinctive modalities of abuse: (1) the \"depersonalisation\" and \"brainwashing\" of political detainees in Rawson Prison in Argentinian Patagonia, where psychiatrists and psychologists participated in experimental repression programmes; and (2) the transfer of torture-induced psychiatric patients to military-controlled hospitals, where coercive pharmacological interventions, electroconvulsive therapy, and further physical violence were inflicted. The analysis highlights psychiatry's function as a mechanism for direct torture and a legitimising veneer for political persecution. In doing so, it integrates previously fragmented materials into a unified analytical framework and situates psychiatric abuses within wider transnational patterns of repression characteristic of other Latin American dictatorships. Moreover, in the context of contemporaneous denialist narratives in Argentina and ongoing international instances of psychiatric abuse worldwide, the paper underlines the persistent vulnerability of ethical safeguards, reemphasising calls for proactive measures to protect against future human rights violations.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"957154X261449447"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148102083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Late 19th-century connections between Irish psychological medicine and the West Riding Asylum, Wakefield, England.","authors":"Andrew J Larner","doi":"10.1177/0957154X261449443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X261449443","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper traces the career trajectories of four Irish doctors - Edward Mazière Courtenay, Oscar Woods, Edward Levinge, and James Wallis - all of whom gained early clinical experience in psychological medicine whilst working at the West Riding Asylum in Wakefield, England, during the 1870s, the era during which this county asylum for paupers aspired to be a \"research school\" for the study of insanity. An attempt is made to examine whether, as a result of their experiences at Wakefield, these clinicians introduced research practices or any of the innovations of the West Riding Asylum, such as a dedicated pathological laboratory, into the Irish public system of district asylums. The evidence indicates that no such developments occurred in Ireland, despite two of the four clinicians, Courtenay and Woods, achieving positions of considerable authority within the profession on their return to Ireland. Possible reasons for this absence of research in Irish asylums during the latter part of the 19th century are explored.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"957154X261449443"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148018136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Blowing glass flowers: How gender shaped psychopathy in American psychiatry, 1906-1941.","authors":"Suzanna Banks Schulert","doi":"10.1177/0957154X261435550","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X261435550","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In 1941, Hervey Cleckley's <i>The Mask of Sanity</i> crystalized 35 years of American psychiatric negotiation of psychopathy with a durable image of a superficially charming but inherently destructive man. American psychiatric institutions began classifying some patients as psychopaths in 1906 when prominent psychiatrist Adolf Meyer imported the concept from Europe. Initially, American psychopaths were a diverse group of delinquent misfits, weak of will and ill-suited to social life. In the ensuing decades, the psychopath morphed from an unattractive, suggestible failure into a hypermasculine, pitiless achiever. This article traces the concept of psychopathy in American psychiatric literature between Meyer's introduction and Cleckley's articulation to show how the ideals of mental hygiene and the narrative power of Cleckley's portrait contributed to this gendered winnowing of the category.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"957154X261435550"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147785172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Outpatients clinics and the 1930 Mental Treatment Act: Patients and practitioners, c.1888-c.1940.","authors":"Rob Ellis, Alice Brumby","doi":"10.1177/0957154X261430341","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X261430341","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article explores the introduction of the 1930 Mental Treatment Act (MTA) and places it within a longer-term trajectory of the development of acute services. While many historians have considered the apparent novelty of the MTA, they have tended to see the development of outpatients clinics as separate from the ongoing demand on in-patient services. Using patient case files from the West Riding Mental Hospital, in the northern English county of Yorkshire, consideration is given to the links and overlaps between the creation of the new legalistic categories of temporary and voluntary inpatients and the development of outpatients clinics over the longer-term. Using quantitative and qualitative evidence it demonstrates the continuities in terms of the provision of services and the financial limitations that impacted on their delivery. While attention is paid to the medical story, including the place of female psychiatrists and social workers in the delivery of services, this article emphasises the role of patients, families and non-specialist practitioners in their successes and failures.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"957154X261430341"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147692729","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
History of PsychiatryPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-09-27DOI: 10.1177/0957154X251371359
Lorenzo Stampatore, Bruno Orlandella, Massimiliano Aragona
{"title":"Semantics and schizophrenic language: The contribution of Sergio Piro.","authors":"Lorenzo Stampatore, Bruno Orlandella, Massimiliano Aragona","doi":"10.1177/0957154X251371359","DOIUrl":"10.1177/0957154X251371359","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Alterations of language are a classical hallmark of schizophrenia that many psychologists studied as an expression of psychotic thought disorder. Studies addressing the linguistic specificities of schizophrenic language are less frequent, and those focusing on the semantic sphere are very rare. This paper examines Sergio Piro's studies on schizophrenic language. His theory of semantic dissociation offers a solution to old disputes (e.g. excessive concretism vs abstractness of schizophrenic language). Piro suggests a fluctuating semantic halo that can be enlarged and/or restricted, depending on the linguistic situation. The process of semantic dissociation includes four possible disorders, representing a gradual disorganization of speech: the fluctuation of the semantic halo, the semantic distortion, the semantic dispersion, and the semantic dissolution. Finally, by approaching the topic through semantic analysis, he restored anthropological meaning to linguistic features previously conceived as mere symptoms of a degenerative process.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"25-38"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145179451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
History of PsychiatryPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-10-23DOI: 10.1177/0957154X251371360
Gabriely Rosa Dos Prazeres, Caio Maximino
{"title":"Art and madness in 20th century Brazilian psychiatry.","authors":"Gabriely Rosa Dos Prazeres, Caio Maximino","doi":"10.1177/0957154X251371360","DOIUrl":"10.1177/0957154X251371360","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article explores the role of Brazilian art therapy in the 20th century in facilitating linguistic encounters through non-linguistic media for psychotic patients, influenced by the vanguardist movements of the time and framed by Jaspers' theory of language. Osório Cesar's interpretations of patients' artwork, Nise da Silveira's focus on artistic expression, and Lula Wanderley's use of Relational Objects exemplify the potential of non-linguistic media to bridge the communication gap in therapy. These approaches highlight the importance of symbolic content and bodily experiences in conveying meaning. Art therapy, shaped by its relationship with vanguardist movements, harnesses non-linguistic media to create linguistic encounters, allowing psychotic patients to communicate their distress and reshape their reality. This holistic approach enhances mental and emotional well-being by integrating artistic and bodily experiences into therapeutic practices, fostering meaningful transformation.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"39-57"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145349144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
History of PsychiatryPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-07-24DOI: 10.1177/0957154X251357747
Chris Maloney
{"title":"A story that had to be told: Narrative determinism and 'The Sleep Room'.","authors":"Chris Maloney","doi":"10.1177/0957154X251357747","DOIUrl":"10.1177/0957154X251357747","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Jon Stock's <i>The Sleep Room</i> focuses on mid-century psychiatrist William Sargant, his 'deep sleep therapy', and other physical treatments such as ECT and insulin coma therapy. It exemplifies 'narrative determinism'-the tendency of familiar storytelling tropes to shape historical interpretation. Stock's emotionally charged, selectively sourced account contrasts with the complex clinical realities and ethical standards of the time. Such one-sided narratives distort public understanding, undermine trust in mental health services, and oversimplify psychiatric practice. A more balanced account, attentive to context and therapeutic intent, is needed to understand figures like Sargant and the evolution of psychiatric care. 'Narrative determinism', in keeping with the ideas of Hayden White, offers a way of characterising some forces shaping unhelpful historical accounts.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"94-98"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144700028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
History of PsychiatryPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-10-23DOI: 10.1177/0957154X251371358
Masaaki Sasaki, Hiroki Kocha
{"title":"How did Leo Kanner distinguish early infantile autism from childhood schizophrenia?","authors":"Masaaki Sasaki, Hiroki Kocha","doi":"10.1177/0957154X251371358","DOIUrl":"10.1177/0957154X251371358","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Since the 2000s, the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has increased, and the diagnosis of ASD has become heterogeneous. Recently, some researchers have begun to regard ASD as a form of neurodiversity rather than a medical disorder. In this article, we re-examine the establishment process of early infantile autism, as reported by Leo Kanner, and place the current debate in a historical context. An essential issue for Kanner was differentiating early infantile autism from childhood schizophrenia, but what made this difficult was the changing concept of schizophrenia over time. We consider how this affected Kanner's arguments and how it relates to the current autism debate.</p>","PeriodicalId":45965,"journal":{"name":"History of Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"7-24"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145349132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}