International Relations in Psychiatry: Britain, Germany, and the United States to World War II addresses a crucial period in the history of psychiatry by examining the transfer of conceptual, institutional, and financial resources and the migration of psychiatrists between Britain, the United States, and Germany. The decades around 1900 were crucial in the evolution of modern medical and social sciences, and in the formation of various national health services systems. The modern fields of psychiatry and mental health care are located at the intersection of these spheres. There emerged concepts, practices, and institutions that marked responses to challenges posed by urbanization, industrialization, and the formation of the nation-state. These psychiatric responseswere locally distinctive, and yet at the same time established influential models with an international impact. In spite of rising nationalism in Europe, the intellectual, institutional and material resources that emerged in thevarious local and national contexts were rapidly observed to have had an impact beyond any national boundaries. In numerous ways, innovations were adopted and refashioned for the needs and purposes of new national and local systems. International Relations in Psychiatry: Britain, Germany, and the United States to World War II brings together hitherto separate approaches from the social, political, and cultural history of medicine and health care and argues that modern psychiatry developed in a constant, though not always continuous, transfer of ideas, perceptions, and experts across national borders. Contributors: John C. Burnham, Eric J. Engstrom, Rhodri Hayward, Mark Jackson, Pamela Michael, Hans Pols, Volker Roelcke, Heinz-Peter Schmiedebach, Mathew Thomson, Paul J. Weindling, Louise Westwood Volker Roelcke is Professor and Director at the Institute for the History of Medicine, Giessen University, Germany. Paul J. Weindling is Professor in the History of Medicine, Oxford Brookes University, UK. Louise Westwood is Honorary Research Reader, University of Sussex, UK.

This is a history of how twentieth-century Britons came to view themselves and their world in psychological terms, and how this changed over time. It examines the extent to which psychological thought and practice could mediate, not just understanding of the self, but also a wide range of social and economic, political, and ethical issues that rested on assumptions about human nature. In doing so, it brings together high and low psychological cultures; it focuses not just on health, but also on education, economic life, and politics; and it reaches from the start of the century right up to the 1970s. Mathew Thomson highlights the intense excitement surrounding psychology at the start of the century, and its often highly unorthodox expression in thought and practice. He argues that the appeal of psychological thinking has been underestimated in the British context, partly because its character has been misconstrued. Psychology found a role because, rather than shattering values, it offered them new life. The book considers the extent to which such an ethical and social psychological subjectivity survived the challenges of an industrial civilization, a crisis in confidence regarding human nature wrought by war and political extremism, and finally the emergence of a permissive society. It concludes that many of our own assumptions about the route to psychological modernity - centred on the rise of individualism and interiority, and focusing on the liberation of emotion, and on talk, relationships, and sex - need substantial revision, or at least setting alongside a rather different path when it comes to the Britain of 1900-70.

This is the first detailed assessment of the development and implementation of social policy to deal with the problem of the `mentally deficient' in Britain between 1870 and 1959. Mathew Thomson analyses all the factors involved in the policy-making process, beginning with the politics of the legislature and showing how the demands of central government were interpreted by local authorities, resulting in a wide and varied distribution of medical, institutional, and community care in different parts of the country. The efforts of health professionals, voluntary organizations and the families themselves are considered, alongside questions about the influence of changing concepts of class, gender, and citizenship. The author queries the belief that the policy of segregation was largely unsuccessful, and reveals a hitherto unrecognized system of care in the community. He reframes our understanding of the campaign for sterilization and examines why British policy-makers avoided extremist measures such as the compulsory sterilization introduced in Germany and parts of the US during this period. Thomson shows that the problem of mental deficiency cannot be understood simply in terms of eugenics but must also be considered as part of the process of adjusting to democracy in the twentieth century.