Auf dem Weg zur Reform: Ein netzwerkanalytischer Blick auf die Akteure im Vorfeld der Psychiatrie-Enquete von 1971

This article focuses on the institutional development of psychiatry in West-Germany after 1945. It analyses the impact of institutional and individual relationships on the West-German Post-war psychiatry. The methods used here are an extensive research and documentary analysis as well as a qualitative content analysis of expert interviews. The main focus was on the thought collective of the Federal German reform-orientated psychiatry in the run-up of the “Psychiatrie-Enquete”. The evaluation of the expert interviews as well as the institutional structures showed the central role of Caspar Kulenkampff and Heinz Hafner. Both had an excellent network in the scene of the “Psychiatrie-Enquete’s” preparation phase. As a further result of this survey it can be asserted that not only protagonists, understood as central persons, appeared as influential figures, but also persons who had not been suspected in this role, e. g. the occupational therapist Christiane Haerlin or the former chairman of the Association of Statuary Health Insurance Physicians Josef Schmitz-Formes. In summary, the development initiating the Enquete was not defined by only one or few actors.