Invading the Public and the Private: The Hygiene of Everyday Life, Shell-Shock and the Politics of Turn-of-the-Century Psychiatric Expertise

Abstract

In this chapter, Lafferton reconstructs the growing social criticism psychiatrists formulated in scientific and public forums by 1900 and beyond, building on the strong connections between mental pathology and social problems demonstrated in the previous chapter, such as alcoholism, pauperism, prostitution, syphilis, effects of industrialisation and modernisation, gender relations, political unrest. Psychiatrists thus extended their expertise to the larger social domain as well as the private spheres of ordinary families and individuals by contributing to the crystallisation of the hygiene of a healthy mental and physical “everyday” life, in which prophylactics figured centrally. Their work is situated within the wider context of “degenerationist” thinking, eugenics and turn-of-the-century culture. Lafferton concludes with a discussion of shell-shock or war neurosis in Hungary, another area where psychiatrists’ political role became visible. Special attention is paid to Sándor Ferenczi’s psychoanalytical contribution to the matter.