VIRUS Band 23, pp. 205-220, 2025/04/24
Schwerpunkt: Mensch - Tier - Gesundheit
The project report explores human-animal relationships in psychiatric institutions around 1900 on the basis of visual material and entries in medical records, as this topic has not been researched yet. It follows the animals that appear in the sources in a variety of ways which at the same time show the diversity of possible relationships between patients and animals under the conditions of psychiatric institutions. The paper elaborates on the animals that lived there as farm animals or that were lured with food and attention and tamed there. It asks after the relationships that could evolve between nurses, patients and animals. What dynamics and interactions were set in motion by the presence of and contact with animals? And what spaces of possibility were the animals able to open up for the patients – and can first approaches to a animal-assistend therapy be already identified?
Keywords: Psychiatry; human-animal-relationship; animal-assisted-therapy; 19th and 20th century