Tag Archives: neurosis

A Neurotic Dog’s Life: Experimental Psychiatry and the Conditional Reflex Method in the Work of W. Horsley Gantt

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Horsley Gantt feeding dog, Gundy.

The June 2018 issue of Isis contains an article on the conditional reflex and experimental psychiatry that will interest AHP readers.

“A Neurotic Dog’s Life: Experimental Psychiatry and the Conditional Reflex Method in the Work of W. Horsley Gantt,” by Edmund Ramsden. Abstract:

From the 1920s, inspired by the work of Ivan Pavlov, many American psychiatrists, physiologists, and psychologists turned to the animal laboratory. Focusing on the work of W. Horsley Gantt, this essay will explore the use of the conditional reflex method in the study of “experimental neurosis.” Concentrating on the interaction between thought and material operations in Gantt’s Pavlovian Laboratory, the essay will show how idiosyncratic emotional reactions and behaviors among experimental animals were used to address the issue of individuality in science, medicine, and society. It was through working with the dog that individuality was identified as an incessant problem that could be utilized in laboratory practice, as a necessary focus of psychiatric medicine, and as a means of defending science from excessive determinism and stereotyped thinking.

Forthcoming in Social History of Medicine: Accident Neurosis, Neuroleptics, Rene Spitz and More

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A number of articles forthcoming from Social History of Medicine that may interest AHP readers are now available online. Full titles, authors, and abstracts below.

“What Do Babies Need to Thrive? Changing Interpretations of ‘Hospitalism’ in an International Context, 1900–1945,” by Katharina Rowold. Abstract:

In 1945, the émigré psychoanalyst René Spitz published a landmark article in which he suggested that babies cared for in institutions commonly suffered from ‘hospitalism’ and failed to thrive. According to Spitz this was the case because such babies were deprived of ‘maternal care, maternal stimulation, and maternal love.’ Historical interest in separation research and the development of the concept of maternal deprivation has tended to focus on the 1940s and 50s. The term ‘hospitalism’, however, was coined at the end of the nineteenth century and by 1945 the question of whether or not babies could be cared for in institutions had already been debated for a number of decades by an international community of paediatricians and developmental psychologists, later joined by psychoanalysts. Criss-crossing national boundaries and exploring debates over the nature, causes, and prevention of ‘hospitalism’, this article elucidates the changing understandings of the impact on babies of living in institutions.

“Between Shell Shock and PTSD? ‘Accident Neurosis’ and Its Sequelae in Post-War Britain,” by Ryan Ross. Summary: Continue reading Forthcoming in Social History of Medicine: Accident Neurosis, Neuroleptics, Rene Spitz and More →

UCL July 8th: Exploring Transcultural Histories of Psychotherapies

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On July 8th the UCL Health Humanities Centre is hosting an event “Exploring Transcultural Histories of Psychotherapies.” Full details follow below.  Those interested in attending can register online here.

What is the place of psychotherapies in twentieth century societies? What impact have they had? How should one go about studying and assessing this? These are among the question explored in this conference, which looks at psychotherapies from the outside. It suggests new ways in which the interconnections, intersections, contrasts and clashes in transcultural histories of psychotherapies may be explored.

10.45- 11.15am Registration/Coffee

11.15-11.30am Professor Sonu Shamdasani (chair) (UCL) Introduction

11.30-12.15pm Dr. Gavin Miller (University of Glasgow) The Jet-Propelled Couch and Beyond: Psychotherapy in Post-War Speculative Culture

12.15-1.00pm Dr. Rachael Rosner (Independent Scholar, Boston, USA) The Problem of Place in the History of Psychotherapy

1.00-2.30pm Lunch

2.30-3.15pm Professor Cristiana Facchinetti (Fiocruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) Between Vanguards and the Alienated: Art and Therapeutics (Brazil, 1920-1940)

3.15-4.00pm Dr. Sarah Marks (Birkbeck College) Suggestion, Persuasion and Work: Psychotherapies in the Soviet Sphere

4.00-4.30pm tea

4.30-5.15pm Professor Sonu Shamdasani (UCL) From Neurosis to a New Cure of Souls: C. G. Jung’s Remaking of the Psychotherapeutic Patient