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Over the past decade or so, a thesis has emerged which has been gaining ever wider currency among historians of twentieth-century Europe and the United States, particularly among historians of the human sciences. The thesis can, in part at least, be traced back to one of Michel Foucault' s ® nal projects: the attempt to explore so-called`technologies of the self' , the historically diOE erent tools of self-knowledge used to represent, speak about, and govern one's own as well as others' subjectivities. 1 In pursuing this research agenda, a range of scholars have noted the uniquely prominent role played by psychological professionals and their knowledge in twentieth-century public life. Serving as both cause and eOE ect in the general trend toward a pluralization of social identities in the contemporary world, it is argued, the psychological sciences (psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy) during the second third of the last century witnessed a pronounced growth in the number of their practitioners, while simultaneously extending their reach to inspire and support a wide range of activities. Besides laboratory research and psychiatric care, these included human resource management in the workplace and military, pedagogy, social work, new social movements, advertising and market research, and various counselling services. 2 The eOE ect was a psychologization of human subjectivity.

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While contemporary mental health services have been marked by the burgeoning of outpatient and preventive care, the historiography of psychiatry remains largely tied to the study of custodial and palliative treatment.The work in which contemporary psychiatry has been involved cannot be adequately understood as a singular, autonomous enterprise based in a residential facility. It has become a technoscience that operates in numerous settings and alongside multiple sciences, technologies and decision-makers. This paper explores what it might mean to 'deinstitutionalize' the history of contemporary psychiatry by examining the case of social therapy for sex offenders in West Germany.