History of Psychiatry最新文献

This article brings together contemporary works by Frantz Fanon and Catalan exile psychiatrist Josep Solanes to consider the simultaneous emergence at the end of the Second World War of discourses articulating the plight of refugees and racialized people through the medium of psychiatric discourses focusing on socially inflicted mental pathologies of exile and displacement. Emphasizing in particular their respective phenomenological approaches, it is argued that their trajectories can be attached to the same genealogy of radical psychiatry emerging in the Global North and then continuing into the Global South (Africa in the case of Fanon, Latin America in that of Solanes) where they were developed and made their impact.

The French educator Allan Kardec (1804-1869) was one of the first researchers to propose the scientific investigation of psychical experiences and was an influential scholar in Europe during the second half of the 19th Century. However, his life and the outcome of his research in this field are currently little known and often misconstrued. This paper briefly presents Kardec's biography and his first steps in the investigation of psychical phenomena, especially mediumship. Kardec raised and tested several hypotheses on the causes of mediumistic phenomena: fraud; hallucinations; a new physical force; somnambulism (including unconscious cerebration); thought reflection (including telepathy and super-psi); and discarnate minds.

Drawing on Heidegger's method of analysis, the question of what is psychiatry is explored from within. This leads to a conception of psychiatry as a form of interpersonal interaction in which there is a specific reaching out of one Being to another. It is a 'specific reaching out' because, following the recognition through the interaction between Beings that the other is in some form of distress, there is the corresponding need to assuage. The reformulation of psychiatry in this sense is important because it emphasises the unity with which we communicate and interact, and it also serves as a reminder of the need in psychiatry to develop novel methods to undertake research in this complex and constantly evolving field.

This paper provides an overview of psychedelic research at the Mayo Clinic in the 1950s and 1960s, focusing on methods, objectives, findings, and ethical practices. We highlight instances where researchers prioritized scientific progress over the autonomy, safety, and equitable treatment of research subjects, and discuss this history in the context of ongoing challenges with informed consent and equity in contemporary psychedelic research.

French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, a towering figure familiar to late-19th-century physicians, became better known to the laity of different countries through periodicals, books, and plays. This article examines how Charcot influenced the works of four popular Scandinavian authors: Norwegians Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Hans Ernst Kinck, and Øvre Richter Frich, and a Swede, Axel Munthe. These popular novelists and playwrights, all having lived in Paris, provided pictures of different sides of the brilliant and innovative Parisian physician and researcher, who despite his renown was nonetheless criticized for his theories about the hysterias and hypnosis.

Maurycy Urstein was one of the few Polish physicians of the interwar period to enter into a dialogue with leading psychiatrists of his era. Among the richness of his scientific activity, two threads deserve particular attention: his studies on catatonia, thanks to which he gained the prestige of a scientist-clinician; as well as his forensic and psychological studies, which granted him media fame or, in modern terms, the status of a celebrity. Urstein published key works on psychiatry in German, and Polish translations appeared later. In the case of the monograph devoted to Eligiusz Niewiadomski, the language of the publication was Polish, which meant that it was basically not present in global scientific circulation.

This article explores the evolution of mental hygiene and the stigmatization of mental illness in Latin America during the 20th century. It examines how psychiatric reforms and the mental hygiene movement influenced the social perception of mental illness, highlighting the spread of psychological categories and the construction of stigmatizing language. Using the publications of mental hygiene groups and case analyses in various countries, it reveals how these practices contributed to marginalization and social control, shaping contemporary mental health policies.

In the first half of the 1950s, psychoanalysts and neurosurgeons used electrical brain stimulation to explore hard-to-reach, unconscious psychological processes such as repressed memories, defence mechanisms and sexual identity. The development of evolutionary theory and neurophysiological methods and theory, together with the birth of psychoanalysis, were important precursors to these remarkable stimulation experiments. Experimental, theoretical and clinical antecedents of these stimulation experiments between the 1870s and the 1940s are discussed to show how smoothly the apparently opposing perspectives of psychoanalysis and neurophysiology merged. Two case studies are then briefly described. It is concluded that this striking and brief collaboration demonstrated a pragmatic and eclectic approach that integrated different theories and methods for a more holistic understanding and treatment of psychiatric disorders.

Crimes against humanity took place in many institutions as well as psychiatric departments during the Nazi dictatorship. The cruel and inhumane history of psychiatry during National Socialism is already widely known and broadly published. Victims of the Nazi regime, of the Holocaust, of racism, racial hygiene, and hereditary biology have often been the subjects of scientific inquiry; the relatives and descendants of the killed inpatients have yet to be part of a scientific or psychotherapeutic response. Analogous to the psychiatric-psychotherapeutic approach with traumatized individuals, the procedure "secure-describe and work through-reconnect" was used in collective remembrance work and commemorative culture. As an example of one part of this collective memorial process, the grief work undertaken with the relatives of the victims of Nazi crime is presented. A phenomenological description presents the results of contact with 55 relatives and offspring of victims of Nazi crimes in psychiatric or associated institutions during National Socialism.

This study delves into the historical documentation from 1900 to 1936 by Spanish doctors and educators concerning children's hyperactivity. By focusing on medical perspectives of the time, we aim to explore the conceptualisation of childhood phenomenology within the context of significant international literature of that era. The publications of doctors Jerónimo Moragas and Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora, along with educators Augusto Vidal Perera and José Sarmiento Lausén, will be examined to understand the medical and educational approaches to childhood restlessness. Additionally, the study will review diverse perspectives on this disorder. The research also highlights a noticeable gap in the assistance provided to these children. Ultimately, the article provides insights into how society and childcare professionals addressed the phenomenon of childhood hyperactivity.