Preventing Mental Illness: Past, Present and Future (Mental Health in Historical Perspective)

This book provides an overview of a diverse array of preventive strategies relating to mental illness, and identifies their achievements and shortcomings. The chapters in this collection illustrate how researchers, clinicians and policy makers drew inspiration from divergent fields of knowledge and practice: from eugenics, genetics and medication to mental hygiene, child guidance, social welfare, public health and education; from risk management to radical and social psychiatry, architectural design and environmental psychology. It highlights the shifting patterns of biological, social and psychodynamic models, while adopting a gender perspective and considering professional developments as well as changing social and legal contexts, including deinstitutionalisation and social movements. Through vigorous research, the contributors demonstrate that preventive approaches to mental health have a long history, and point to the conclusion that it might well be possible to learn from such historical attempts. The book also explores which of these approaches are worth considering in future and which are best confined to the past. Within this context, the book aims at stoking and informing debate and conversation about how to prevent mental illness and improve mental health in the years to come. Chapters 3, 10, and 12 of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com Foreword 6 Contents 11 Notes on Contributors 13 Chapter 1 Introduction 17 Context and Historiography 22 Contents 42 Conclusion 47 Chapter 2 Imagination and the Prevention of Violence: Fredric Wertham, Mass Media and Mental Hygiene, 1946–1958 55 Introduction 55 Preventing Violence: Psychiatry and the Threat of Comic Books 58 Lauretta Bender, Comic Books and the Orthodox Psychological Perspective on Imagination 62 Fredric Wertham and the Protection of Imagination 65 The Wonderful World of Disney: Imagination and Fantasy for the Post-war U.S 71 Conclusion 75 Chapter 3 ‘They May Strike Back at Society in a Vengeful Manner’: Preventing the Psychological Scars of Acne in Post-war America 77 Introduction 77 Acne and the Birth of Adolescent Medicine 80 The Social Repercussions of Acne 85 Treating the Tormented 90 Conclusion 98 Chapter 4 Preventing Mental Illness, Preventing Delinquency: Juvenile Justice and Child Psychiatry in Post-war America 102 Introduction 102 A Correctional Beveridge Plan 105 Policy Meets Practice 113 Challenges to the Prevention Model 120 Conclusion 123 Chapter 5 Social and Mental Hygiene: Models of Mental Illness Prevention in Twentieth-Century Greece (1900–1980) 125 Introduction 125 Prevention Before the Second World War: Social Hygiene 126 The Second World War: Moving Towards the Psychological 130 Prevention in the Post-war Period: Mental Hygiene (1950s–1970s) 132 The PanHellenic Association for Mental Hygiene 132 The Society for the Mental Hygiene and Neuropsychiatry of the Child 135 The Centre for Mental Health and Research 138 Prevention and the State 140 Conclusion 142 Chapter 6 Socialism, Society, and the Struggle Against Mental Illness: Preventative Psychiatry in Post-war Yugoslavia 145 Introduction 145 Foundations of Preventative Psychiatry 148 Preventative Psychiatry in Practice 155 Conclusion 163 Chapter 7 The History of Suicide Prevention in Finland, 1860s–2010s 165 Introduction 165 The Becoming of Suicide Prevention into a Matter of Scientific Discussion 166 Suicide as a Social and an Individual Pathology 170 Lifting the Shroud Off the Taboo: Professionalisation of Suicide Research and Prevention 174 The Depression Paradigm and Beyond: Suicide Prevention in the Third Millennium 180 Conclusion 183 Chapter 8 Risk Assessment in an Age of Neoliberalism: John Monahan’s The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behavior (1981) 185 Introduction 185 The Path to Risk Assessment 186 The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behaviour 192 Risk Assessment in Context 196 Conclusion 199 Chapter 9 American Psychiatry in Transition: Reform or Revolution? 201 Introduction 201 Background 202 Radical Origins 205 Publication Record 208 Activated Patients 214 Conclusion 219 Chapter 10 Designing for Mental Health: Psychiatry, Psychology and the Architectural Study Project 222 Introduction 222 The Architectural Study Project 225 The Mental Hospital as an Investigative Space 231 Principles of Privacy, Territory and Personal Space in Built Environments 237 Conclusion 244 Chapter 11 Newgenics and the Politics of Choice: A Historical Look at Canada’s Psychiatric Institutions in the 1970s 249 Eugenics and Disability in Canada 249 Eugenics and Institutions 258 Disability, Dependent Adults and Institutionalised People 260 Personal vs. Mental Hygiene 263 Conclusion 266 Chapter 12 Preventing Male Mental Illness in Post-war Britain 269 Introduction 269 New Anxieties, and Communicating Health in Post-war Britain 271 Lay Medicine and Discourses of Health 274 Mental Health Organisations and Discourse on Gender 283 Conclusion 289 Index 293 Front Matter ....Pages i-xvi Introduction (Matthew Smith, Vicky Long, Oonagh Walsh, Despo Kritsotaki)....Pages 1-38 Imagination and the Prevention of Violence: Fredric Wertham, Mass Media and Mental Hygiene, 1946–1958 (Dennis Doyle)....Pages 39-60 ‘They May Strike Back at Society in a Vengeful Manner’: Preventing the Psychological Scars of Acne in Post-war America (Iain Ferguson)....Pages 61-85 Preventing Mental Illness, Preventing Delinquency: Juvenile Justice and Child Psychiatry in Post-war America (Erin J. Lux)....Pages 87-109 Social and Mental Hygiene: Models of Mental Illness Prevention in Twentieth-Century Greece (1900–1980) (Despo Kritsotaki)....Pages 111-130 Socialism, Society, and the Struggle Against Mental Illness: Preventative Psychiatry in Post-war Yugoslavia (Mat Savelli)....Pages 131-150 The History of Suicide Prevention in Finland, 1860s–2010s (Mikko Myllykangas)....Pages 151-170 Risk Assessment in an Age of Neoliberalism: John Monahan’s The Clinical Prediction of Violent Behavior (1981) (Matthew Gambino)....Pages 171-186 American Psychiatry in Transition: Reform or Revolution? (Lucas Richert, Matthew DeCloedt)....Pages 187-207 Designing for Mental Health: Psychiatry, Psychology and the Architectural Study Project (Edmund Ramsden)....Pages 209-235 Newgenics and the Politics of Choice: A Historical Look at Canada’s Psychiatric Institutions in the 1970s (Erika Dyck)....Pages 237-256 Preventing Male Mental Illness in Post-war Britain (Ali Haggett)....Pages 257-280 Back Matter ....Pages 281-292