Socialist psychotherapy and its dissidents

Leuenberger, Christine

doi:10.1002/jhbs.1034

Cited by 30 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(22 reference statements)

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“…A wide range of techniques relying on mechanisms of suggestion was developed by Soviet psychiatrists under the domain of "psychotherapy," becoming a chief form of intervention in treatment for alcoholism, for example (Raikhel, 2010(Raikhel, , 2016. Looking beyond the USSR, there was even greater heterogeneity, with psychoanalysis thriving in post WWII Yugoslavia (Savelli, 2013) and being practiced underground in East Germany (Leuenberger, 2001).…”

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confidence: 99%

Postsocialism, the psy-ences and mental health

Raikhel

Bemme

2016

Transcult Psychiatry

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Over the past decades, the formerly socialist countries of East Central Europe and Eurasia have experienced a range of transformations which bear directly upon the domains of mental health, psychiatry, and psychology. In particular, the disciplines and professions concerned with the human mind, brain, and behavior ("the psy-ences") were strongly affected by sociopolitical changes spanning the state-socialist and postsocialist periods. These disciplines' relationship to the state, their modes of knowledge production, and the epistemic order and subjectivities they contributed to have all undergone dramatic ruptures. In this essay, we trace the literature on these issues across three thematic domains: (a) history and memory; (b) the reform of psychiatry in an era of global mental health; and (c) therapy and self-fashioning. We argue for a closer articulation between the social science and historical literature on socialism and its "posts" and the literature among anthropologists, sociologists, and historians on the sciences of the mind and brain, and we suggest that each of these literatures helps to critically open up and enrich the other.

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confidence: 99%

Postsocialism, the psy-ences and mental health

Raikhel

Bemme

2016

Transcult Psychiatry

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“…Maaz ist tendenziell zuzustimmen, der feststellte, dass Psychotherapiemethoden, die auf Beratung, Entspannung, Suggestion, einfühlendes Verstehen und zu korrigierendes Verhalten bauten, weniger gebremst wurden als psychodynamisch orientierte, dass "das Ringen um die Priorität psychotherapeutischer Theorien und Methoden immer auch eine politisch-ideologische Auseinandersetzung" war, und weil analytische Methoden als bürgerliche Irrlehre galten, ein Bekenntnis zu diesen eine Distanzierung vom System der DDR bedeutete oder als solche interpretierbar war [16]. Gleichzeitig sollte nicht vergessen werden, dass ein Teil der Aufarbeitung der Geschichte der Psychotherapie von in der DDR tätig gewesenen Therapeuten geschieht, also eine Berufsgruppe ihre eigene Vergangenheit rekonstruiert, sodass eine gewisse Gefahr besteht, nonkonformistische Therapiemethoden vereinfachend als politisch oppositionell zu interpretieren oder Transformationen, die nach 1989 stattfanden, als minimal erscheinen zu lassen [14]. Immerhin hatte sich die ideologisch motivierte Bremsung der 1950er und 1960er Jahre [17] während der letzten beiden DDR-Jahrzehnte wahrnehmbar gelockert.…”

Section: ▼ Zunehmende Methodenvielfalt Und Prosperitätunclassified

25 Jahre nach der „Wiedervereinigung“: Der Versuch einer Übersicht über die Psychiatrie in der DDR. Teil 2: Von pluralistischen Betrachtungsweisen und dem Zusammenbruch in den 1980er Jahren

Steinberg¹

2016

Fortschr Neurol Psychiatr

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This is the second part of a 2-part study of the history of psychiatry in East Germany, i. e. the Soviet Occupied Zone and later German Democratic Republic. This part primarily covers the 1970 s and 1980 s. Starting from the 1970 s, pluralistic views on and approaches to mental illness and its treatment gained ground, which was especially visible in psychotherapy. The exacerbating economic crisis of the 1970 s and 1980 s led to a steadily worsening collapse of the building infrastructure of clinics and any reformation that would have led to significant financial investment became impossible. Despite attempts from party and state, psychiatric institutions successfully resisted being systematically misused against their patients.In the discussion part, the study supports the notion that East German psychiatry was neither totally isolated nor communist in nature. Even though communism had an influence, it did not have a decisively modifying impact on psychiatry, so that one can characterize psychiatry in East Germany as a medical discipline with a certain specific typology.

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“…As a socialist and director of a leading clinic for psychotherapy, he had the clout and resources necessary to bring about changes in the psychological sciences. 91 He also cleverly used Marxism-Leninism to make the rhetorical case for a new approach to neurotic disorders. His definition of neuroses addressed the philosophical concerns of dialectical materialism by attending to the "dialectics" between humans and their environment.…”

Section: From Tidy Theories To Messy Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultures of Categories: Psychological Diagnoses as Institutional and Political Projects before and after the Transition from State Socialism in 1989 in East Germany

Leuenberger

2007

Osiris

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How can psychological categories be understood as historical, political, and cultural artifacts? How are such categories maintained by individuals, organizations, and governments? How do macrosocietal changes-such as the transition from state socialism in East Germany in 1989-correlate with changes in the social and organizational structures that maintain psychological categories? This essay focuses on how--pre-1989--the category of neurosis (as a mental disorder) became entwined with East Germany's grand socialist project of creating new socialist personalities, a new society, and a new science and on how diagnostic preferences were adapted, modified, and extended by local cultural and institutional practices. It also examines how post-1989 the category of neurosis became redefined in accord with a formerly West German psychotherapeutic paradigm and was eventually obliterated by the bureaucratic health care system of the new Germany. East German practitioners adopted new therapeutic guidelines and a new language to make sense of the "normal", "neurotic", and "pathological" self in terms of "individualizing forms of knowledge" that tied in with efforts to remake East German citizens as liberal democratic subjects. At the same time, practitioners' clinical practice remained based upon face-to-face encounters in which formal guidelines and stipulations were often superseded by local, interactional, institutional, and cultural practices and contingencies.

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Socialist psychotherapy and its dissidents

Cited by 30 publications

References 17 publications

Postsocialism, the psy-ences and mental health

Postsocialism, the psy-ences and mental health

25 Jahre nach der „Wiedervereinigung“: Der Versuch einer Übersicht über die Psychiatrie in der DDR. Teil 2: Von pluralistischen Betrachtungsweisen und dem Zusammenbruch in den 1980er Jahren

Cultures of Categories: Psychological Diagnoses as Institutional and Political Projects before and after the Transition from State Socialism in 1989 in East Germany

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