Between Institutional Psychiatry and Mental Health Care: Social Psychiatry in the Netherlands, 1916-2000

The term ?social psychiatry? became current in the Netherlands from the late 1920s. Its meaning was imprecise. In a general way, the term referred to psychiatric approaches of mental illness that focused on its social origins and backgrounds. In this broad interpretation social psychiatry was connected to the psycho-hygienic goal of preventing mental disorders, but also to epidemiological research on the distribution of mental illness among the population at large. The treatment called ?active therapy?, introduced in Dutch mental asylums in the 1920s and geared towards the social rehabilitatio... Mehr ...