The making of contemporary American psychiatry, Part 2: therapeutics and gender before and after World War II

Hist Psychol. 2005 Aug;8(3):271-88. doi: 10.1037/1093-4510.8.3.271.

Abstract

In this article, the 2nd in a 2-part series, the authors use patient records from California's Stockton State Hospital to explore the changing role of gender norms and other cultural values in the care of psychiatric patients. The authors show that cultural values are always imbedded in psychiatric practice and that their role in that practice depends on the patients, treatments, and therapeutic rationales present in a given therapeutic encounter. Because the decade following World War II witnessed dramatic changes in psychiatry's patients, therapeutics, and rationales, Stockton State Hospital's patient records from this time period allow the authors to show not only the extent to which gender norms shape psychiatric practice but also how psychiatry's expansion into the problems of everyday life has led to psychiatry taking a more subtle and yet more active role in enforcing societal norms.

Publication types

  • Historical Article

MeSH terms

  • Antipsychotic Agents / therapeutic use
  • California
  • Electroconvulsive Therapy / history
  • Female
  • History, 20th Century
  • Hospitals, Psychiatric / history*
  • Hospitals, Psychiatric / statistics & numerical data
  • Humans
  • Institutionalization / history
  • Male
  • Mental Disorders / diagnosis
  • Mental Disorders / drug therapy
  • Mental Disorders / history*
  • Psychiatry / history*
  • Psychiatry / trends
  • Psychosurgery / adverse effects
  • Psychosurgery / history*
  • Sex Factors
  • Social Values

Substances

  • Antipsychotic Agents