Managing the `unmanageable': interwar child psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital, London

Abstract

When opened as a post-graduate teaching and research hospital in 1923, the Maudsley made virtually no provision for the treatment of children. Yet its children's department saw sustained growth during the interwar period. This expansion is explored in relation to novel behaviourist hypotheses and the forging of formal links with local government and charitable bodies. The recruitment of psychologists, educators and specialist social workers fostered a multidisciplinary approach through case conferences. This development would structure the theoretical origins of child psychiatry, in particular influencing the role and interpretation of psychoanalytic theory within it. The theoretical orientation of child psychiatry and the practical treatment of children represented an area of dynamic change and innovation at a time when adult psychiatry struggled to discover effective treatments or achieve breakthroughs in causal understanding.