CICLE: “La cultura material de la psiquiatría”

Seminari impartit per Max Gawlich, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg

Dimecres 10 de novembre de 2021 a les 18 h.

The Material Ecology of Electroconvulsive Therapy

In the 1930s many mental health practitioners had already gained experiences treating patients not with pills or by injection but with electric stimulation. Many of them had their share of galvanisation, faradisation or other applications of electricity to treat soldiers suffering from shell shock, ‘hysteric housewives’ or ‘lachrymose morphinists’. In the 1930 psychiatrists also adopted further somatic therapies, in particular shock therapies. In the late 1930s the innovation and distribution of Electro-Convulsive Therapy took place in this therapeutic setting surrounded by the spread of electrification and electric things in the broader society. In my talk I will discuss the role and effects of this material ecology surrounding the introduction and adaptation of early ECT in Germany and Britain during the Second World War. By comparison, I will pursue the question: how institutional traditions are inscribed in the material culture of psychiatric therapy and how it structures the process of therapeutic development on the clinical level?

Max Gawlich és historiador a la Universitat de Heidelberg, on desenvolupa un projecte de recerca sobre la vida quotidiana i la cura dels infants a les dues Alemanyes durant la dècada de 1970 patrocinat per la DFG (Fundació Alemanya de Recerca). Es va doctorar a Heidelberg amb un estudi sobre la innovació i la distribució de la teràpia electroconvulsiva a Gran Bretanya, Alemanya i Suïssa durant els anys quaranta i cinquanta del segle XX, publicat el 2017 amb el títol Eine Maschine, die wirkt: Die Elektrokrampftherapie und ihr Apparat, 1938–1950.

Cicle organitzat per Enric Novella (IILP-UV)

DURATION: 88 min