Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: constructing international health between the wars
- 2 ‘Custodians of the sacred fire’: the ICRC and the postwar reorganisation of the International Red Cross
- 3 Red Cross organisational politics, 1918–1922: relations of dominance and the influence of the United States
- 4 The League of Nations Health Organisation
- 5 Assistance and not mere relief: the Epidemic Commission of the League of Nations, 1920–1923
- 6 Wireless wars in the eastern arena: epidemiological surveillance, disease prevention and the work of the Eastern Bureau of the League of Nations Health Organisation, 1925–1942
- 7 Social medicine at the League of Nations Health Organisation and the International Labour Office compared
- 8 The Social Section and Advisory Committee on Social Questions of the League of Nations
- 9 ‘Uncramping child life’: international children's organisations, 1914–1939
- 10 The International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation: the Russell years, 1920–1934
- 11 The cycles of eradication: the Rockefeller Foundation and Latin American public health, 1918–1940
- 12 The Pasteur Institutes between the two world wars. The transformation of the international sanitary order
- 13 Internationalising nursing education during the interwar period
- 14 Mental hygiene as an international movement
- 15 Mobilising social knowledge for social welfare: intermediary institutions in the political systems of the United States and Great Britain between the First and Second World Wars
- Index
- Cambridge History of Medicine
14 - Mental hygiene as an international movement
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: constructing international health between the wars
- 2 ‘Custodians of the sacred fire’: the ICRC and the postwar reorganisation of the International Red Cross
- 3 Red Cross organisational politics, 1918–1922: relations of dominance and the influence of the United States
- 4 The League of Nations Health Organisation
- 5 Assistance and not mere relief: the Epidemic Commission of the League of Nations, 1920–1923
- 6 Wireless wars in the eastern arena: epidemiological surveillance, disease prevention and the work of the Eastern Bureau of the League of Nations Health Organisation, 1925–1942
- 7 Social medicine at the League of Nations Health Organisation and the International Labour Office compared
- 8 The Social Section and Advisory Committee on Social Questions of the League of Nations
- 9 ‘Uncramping child life’: international children's organisations, 1914–1939
- 10 The International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation: the Russell years, 1920–1934
- 11 The cycles of eradication: the Rockefeller Foundation and Latin American public health, 1918–1940
- 12 The Pasteur Institutes between the two world wars. The transformation of the international sanitary order
- 13 Internationalising nursing education during the interwar period
- 14 Mental hygiene as an international movement
- 15 Mobilising social knowledge for social welfare: intermediary institutions in the political systems of the United States and Great Britain between the First and Second World Wars
- Index
- Cambridge History of Medicine
Summary
Between the two world wars health services in Europe and America began to extend from institutional care of the seriously mentally disordered to cover early treatment of less serious cases, after-care of recovered cases and organised care in the community. Even more ambitiously, there was an expansion of interest in prevention of mental disorder and promotion of environmental conditions to encourage positive mental health among the normal population. A variety of terms were used to describe these new approaches: in Britain a tradition of charitable and local government economic assistance shaped the emergence of ‘mental welfare’ and ‘community care’; in the United States Adolf Meyer adopted the term ‘biopsychiatry’ to reflect his holistic approach; in France the terms used were ‘mental prophylaxis’ and ‘psychotechnics’; and in the Soviet Union it was ‘psychohygiene’. However, the most popular and all-embracing term used to describe these developments was ‘mental hygiene’.
The simultaneous adoption of mental hygiene strategies was partially the result of common reactions to social and welfare problems of the interwar period. However, the pace of socio-economic and political modernisation was not even. It is therefore worthwhile considering whether parallel developments were, instead, the result of an international mental hygiene movement. This chapter will consider the extent to which there was an international movement and its interaction with national mental hygiene movements and organisations.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939 , pp. 283 - 304Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
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