Deinstitutionalizing the history of contemporary psychiatry

Abstract

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.