VIRUS Band 17, pp. 285-293, 2020/07/21
Schwerpunkt: Medikalisierte Kindheiten
Die neue Sorge um
das Kind vom ausgehenden 19. bis ins späte 20. Jahrhundert
From the 1950s until the 1970s, psychiatric evaluations of children in the outpatient clinic of the mental hospital in Münsterlingen (Switzerland) increased rapidly. A high number of examined children were diagnosed with depression. With a focus on two case studies from the 1960s, the paper examines how the diagnosis was derived. It argues that “infantile depression” as a diagnostical scheme was the product of a specific clinical setting, shaped by adult psychiatry and antidepressants which served as therapeutic and diagnostic instruments at once.
Keywords: Child psychiatry, psychiatric evaluation, psychiatric practice, depression, antidepressants, medicalization, Münsterlingen, 20th century, history of knowledge
