Tag Archives: special issue

Special Issue: Towards Transcultural Histories of Psychotherapies

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The European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling has just released a special issue: “Towards Transcultural Histories of Psychotherapies.” Guest edited by Sonu Shamdasani, the issue includes the following articles:

“Introduction to special issue ‘Towards transcultural histories of psychotherapies’,” Del Loewenthal (Editor-in-Chief). No abstract.

Editorial: “Towards transcultural histories of psychotherapies,” by Sonu Shamdasani (Guest Editor). No abstract.

“Suggestion, persuasion and work: Psychotherapies in communist Europe,” by Sarah Marks. Abstract:

This article traces what recent research and primary sources tell us about psychotherapy in Communist Europe, and how it survived both underground and above the surface. In particular, I will elaborate on the psychotherapeutic techniques that were popular across the different countries and language cultures of the Soviet sphere, with a particular focus upon the Cold War period. This article examines the literature on the mixed fortunes of psychoanalysis and group therapies in the region. More specifically, it focuses upon the therapeutic modalities such as work therapy, suggestion and rational therapy, which gained particular popularity in the Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The latter two approaches had striking similarities with parallel developments in behavioural and cognitive therapies in the West. In part, this was because clinicians on both sides of the ‘iron curtain’ drew upon shared European traditions from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nevertheless, this article argues that in the Soviet sphere, those promoting these approaches appropriated socialist thought as a source of inspiration and justification, or at the very least, as a convenient political shield.

“Manualizing psychotherapy: Aaron T. Beck and the origins of Cognitive Therapy of Depression,” by Rachael I. Rosner. Abstract:

This paper examines the origins of psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck’s 1979 Cognitive Therapy of Depression (CTOD). CTOD was the first psychotherapy manual designed to be used in a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Making psychotherapy amenable to the RCT design had been a ‘holy grail’ for leading American psychotherapy researchers since the late 1960s. Beck’s CTOD – which standardized his treatment so it could be compared with drug treatments in a clinical trial – delivered that holy grail, and ushered in the manualized treatment revolution. Manuals are now a sine qua non in psychotherapy research. In this paper, I explore some of the personal, political, and economic variables that made the idea of a manual irresistible to Beck and to those who first championed him.

“Modernist Pills against Brazilian Alienism (1920–1945),” by Cristiana Facchinetti. Abstract: Continue reading Special Issue: Towards Transcultural Histories of Psychotherapies →

History of the Human Sciences Special Issue: Psychology and its Publics

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It is my pleasure to direct AHP readers to a just released special issue of History of the Human Science on Psychology and its Publics, guest edited by Michael Pettit and myself. The issue includes articles tackling a diverse array of topics on psychology’s relationship with the public, including: the public psychology of sentimentalism and the guillotine during the French Revolution; the construction of an attitudinal public in concert with the development of questionnaires; the dissemination of Albert Ellis’s rational therapy via popular media forms; the public’s interaction with psychological ideas via the graphic novel Watchmen and its queer history; the function of sexual assault surveys in structuring rape’s ontology and politicizing rape as a social issue; and consideration of the ontology of the public through the lens of deliberative public opinion. Thanks to all our contributors for their wonderful and thought provoking work!

In advance of the issue’s release I was also interviewed about the rationale and aims of the special issue by History of the Human Sciences editor-in-chief Felicity Callard. Read that interview in full here.

Full titles, authors, and abstracts for the pieces in the special issue follow below.

“Psychology and its publics,” by Michael Pettit and Jacy L. Young. Abstract:

This paper introduces the special issue dedicated to ‘Psychology and its Publics’. The question of the relationship between psychologists and the wider public has been a central matter of concern to the historiography of psychology. Where critical historians tend to assume a pliant audience, eager to adopt psychological categories, psychologists themselves often complain about the public misunderstanding of them. Ironically, both accounts share a flattened understanding of the public. We turn to research on the public understanding of science (PUS), the public engagement with science (PES) and communications studies to develop a rich account of the circuitry that ties together psychological experts and their subjects.

“The unfailing machine: Mechanical arts, sentimental publics and the guillotine in revolutionary France,” by Edward Jones-Imhotep. Abstract:

This article explores how the pre-eminent public psychology of the French Revolution – sentimentalism – shaped the necessity, understanding and construction of its most iconic public machine. The guillotine provided a solution to the problem of public executions in an age of both sentiment and reason. It was designed to rationalize punishment and make it more humane; but it was also designed to guard against the psychological effects of older, more variable and unpredictable methods of public execution on a sentimental public. That public, contemporaries argued, required executions performed by an unfailing technology. Rather than focus on the role of the guillotine after 1793, the article explores how the implacable mechanical action that helped produce the Reign of Terror and multiply the cadavers of medical science was demanded by the guillotine’s origins as a sentimental machine.

“Numbering the mind: Questionnaires and the attitudinal public,” by Jacy L. Young. Abstract: Continue reading History of the Human Sciences Special Issue: Psychology and its Publics →

HHS Special Issue: Psychotherapy in Historical Perspective

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Sarah Marks

The April 2017 issue of History of the Human Sciences is now online. Guest edited by Sarah Marks, this special issue explores “Psychotherapy in Historical Perspective.” Titles, authors, and abstracts follow below.

“Psychotherapy in historical perspective,” by Sarah Marks. Abstract:

This article will briefly explore some of the ways in which the past has been used as a means to talk about psychotherapy as a practice and as a profession, its impact on individuals and society, and the ethical debates at stake. It will show how, despite the multiple and competing claims about psychotherapy’s history and its meanings, historians themselves have, to a large degree, not attended to the intellectual and cultural development of many therapeutic approaches. This absence has the potential consequence of implying that therapies have emerged as value-free techniques, outside of a social, economic and political context. The relative neglect of psychotherapy, by contrast with the attention historians have paid to other professions, particularly psychiatry, has also underplayed its societal impact. This article will foreground some of the instances where psychotherapy has become an object of emerging historical interest, including the new research that forms the substance of this special issue of History of the Human Sciences.

“The action of the imagination: Daniel Hack Tuke and late Victorian psycho-therapeutics,” by Sarah Chaney. Abstract:

Histories of dynamic psychotherapy in the late 19th century have focused on practitioners in continental Europe, and interest in psychological therapies within British asylum psychiatry has been largely overlooked. Yet Daniel Hack Tuke (1827–95) is acknowledged as one of the earliest authors to use the term ‘psycho-therapeutics’, including a chapter on the topic in his 1872 volume, Illustrations of the Influence of the Mind upon the Body in Health and Disease. But what did Tuke mean by this concept, and what impact did his ideas have on the practice of asylum psychiatry? At present, there is little consensus on this topic. Through in-depth examination of what psycho-therapeutics meant to Tuke, this article argues that late-19th-century asylum psychiatry cannot be easily separated into somatic and psychological strands. Tuke’s understanding of psycho-therapeutics was extremely broad, encompassing the entire field of medical practice (not only psychiatry). The universal force that he adopted to explain psychological therapies, ‘the Imagination’, was purported to show the power of the mind over the body, implying that techniques like hypnotism and suggestion might have an effect on any kind of symptom or illness. Acknowledging this aspect of Tuke’s work, I conclude, can help us better understand late-19th-century psychiatry – and medicine more generally – by acknowledging the lack of distinction between psychological and somatic in ‘psychological’ therapies.

“‘Subordination, authority, psychotherapy’: Psychotherapy and politics in inter-war Vienna,” by David Freis. Abstract: Continue reading HHS Special Issue: Psychotherapy in Historical Perspective →

CfP: Special Issue of HoP on History of Psychotherapy in North and South America

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A call for papers has been issued for a special issue of History of Psychology on the history of psychotherapy in North and South America. Guest edited by Rachael Rosner, the issue will be released in parallel with a special issue of History of the Human Sciences on the history psychotherapy in Europe (guest edited by Sarah Marks). The deadline for submissions is January 1st, 2016. The full call for papers follows below.

The history of psychotherapy is a topic that cuts across disciplines and cultures. In North America, psychotherapy pre-dates Freud in the faith healing and liberal protestant movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, even as Freud took the limelight, the practice passed through many professions including neuropathology, psychiatry, social work, the ministry and clinical psychology, as well as marriage and family counseling, nursing, and a host of others. Psychotherapy also became the darling of cinema and literature. And yet, psychotherapy has never been a licensed profession. Anyone can hang out a shingle as a “psychotherapist.” Psychotherapy has thus been both a staple of, and a lens onto, medicine, science and culture for nearly 125 years.

How can we make sense of this ubiquitous and yet historically elusive practice? This special issue of HOP opens up the conversation to historians from a broad spectrum of specialties. We welcome contributions on any aspect of the subject in North or South America, but ask contributors to keep within the time-frame of late 19th century (when the term “psychotherapy” originated) to the present. Continue reading CfP: Special Issue of HoP on History of Psychotherapy in North and South America →

Special (31 Article!) Issue of Universitas Psychologica

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A special issue of the journal Universitas Psychologica dedicated to the history of psychology is now freely available online. The issue includes 31 contributions which explore the history of psychology in a variety of international locales. Articles in this issue include ones on the work of Christian Wolff, the history of psychoanalysis in Chile, a comparative study of behaviorism in Argentina and Brazil, and much, much more.

While most articles are in Spanish a number are written in English. For more on this issue see this post by the Blog da Rede Iberoamericana de Pesquisadores em História da Psicologia. Full titles, authors, and abstracts follow below.

Happy reading!

“La Idea de Psicología Racional en la Metafísica Alemana (1720) de Christian Wolff,” Saulo Araujo and Thiago Constâncio Ribeiro Pereira. The abstract reads,

Christian Wolff (1679-1754) fue una figura central en la Ilustración europea del siglo XVIII. Al mismo tiempo, tuvo una importancia particular para el desarrollo histórico de la psicología, pues fue el primero en darle a ésta su significación moderna. Sin embargo, la historiografía tradicional de la psicología no le ha dado el debido reconocimiento. El objetivo de este artículo consiste en presentar los elementos centrales de su psicología racional en su Metafísica Alemana (1720) y mostrar su importancia para los debates psicológicos posteriores. Con ello, esperamos contribuir a la divulgación de un aspecto importante del desarrollo histórico de la psicología.

““MUJERES EXTRAVIADAS”: PSICOLOGÍA Y PROSTITUCIÓN EN LA ESPAÑA DE POSTGUERRA,” by Javier Bandrés, Eva Zubieta, and Rafael Llavona. The abstract reads,

La brutal depresión económica en que se sumió la España de postguerra empujó a muchas mujeres a recurrir a la prostitución como único medio de subsistencia. Las autoridades franquistas habían anulado el decreto abolicionista republicano por lo que el comercio sexual era tolerado. Sin embargo, el auge incontrolado de la prostitución hizo reaccionar a las autoridades y se establecieron cárceles especiales para prostitutas. Se analizan los trabajos de postguerra sobre la psicología de la prostitución de tres personajes situados en instituciones claves de la época: Antonio Vallejo Nágera (Universidad de Madrid, Consejo Nacional de Sanidad), Eduardo Martínez Martínez (Clínica Psiquiátrica Penitenciaria de Mujeres) y Francisco J. Echalecu y Canino (Patronato de Protección a la Mujer). Los textos de estos tres autores y sus investigaciones sobre prostitutas españolas les llevan a caracterizarlas como afectas innatas de psicopatía sexual, deficiencia mental y amoralidad. Este diagnóstico les lleva a justificar su internamiento para reforma en las cárceles especiales para prostitutas. Los trabajos de Vallejo, Martínez y Echalecu fueron instrumentales para justificar el establecimiento de las cárceles especiales. El marco conceptual de la biopsicología de inspiración alemana se puso al servicio del proyecto social de la biopolítica franquista.

“Scientifics exchanges between France and Brazil in the history of psychology – the role of Georges Dumas (1908-1946),” by Carolina S. Bandeira de Melo and Regina de Freitas Campos. The abstract reads, Continue reading Special (31 Article!) Issue of Universitas Psychologica →

HoP Special Issue CFP: “Does the History of Psychology Have a Future?”

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History of Psychology invites submissions for a special issue on the topic of “Does the History of Psychology Have a Future?” Submission for the special issue are due July 15, 2015. The full call for papers is reproduced below.

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY 
CALL FOR PAPERS: DOES THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY HAVE A FUTURE?

History of Psychology invites submissions for a special issue on the future of the history of psychology.

20 years ago, Kurt Danziger published an article with the provocative title, “Does the history of psychology have a future?” and it led to a great deal of comment and debate. The institutional position of the field does not seem to have improved in the meantime. The graduate program in history and theory of psychology at the University of New Hampshire was the only one of its kind in the USA and it was ended in 2009. Although the history of psychology is still widely taught at the undergraduate level, concerns have been expressed over a possible decline in the number of psychology departments offering the course. Professional historians have become increasingly prominent in the field. Could the subject eventually be handed over to them, as has already happened with the history of the physical sciences? Should this development be welcomed? There are many issues to be addressed.

We welcome contributions on any aspect of the subject. In order to get as many different perspectives as possible, we welcome contributions from authors in different disciplines (especially psychologists and historians), authors at different stages in their career (from graduate students to emeriti) and authors from different parts of the world. We are well aware that the current situation in the USA may not be representative of the situation elsewhere.

The submission deadline is July 15, 2015.

The main text of each manuscript, exclusive of figures, tables, references, or appendixes, should not exceed 35 double-spaced pages (approximately 7,500 words). Initial inquiries regarding the special issue may be sent to the regular editor, Nadine Weidman (weidman@fas.harvard.edu) or the guest editor, Adrian Brock (adrian.c.brock@gmail.com).

Papers should be submitted through the regular submission portal for History of Psychology (http://www.apa.org/journals/hop/submission.html) with a cover letter indicating that the paper is to be considered for the special issue.

Call for Papers: HoP in Universitas Psychologica

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The journal Universitas Psychologica has issued a call for papers for a special issue dedicated to the history of psychology to be published in 2014. Articles in English and Spanish of not more than 20 pages in length are to be submitted by November 15th, 2013 to universitas.psychologica.sh@gmail.com More detailed submission guidelines can be found here. The full call for papers follows below.

Universitas Psychologica is published by the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Psychology Faculty (Bogotá, Colombia). The journal has a wide scope and a diverse thematic and theoretical spectrum. It has a pluralist purpose because includes papers of all the psychology scopes.

Universitas Psychologica publishes original research papers, review literature, theoretical or methodological contributions as well as book reviews and interviews. Universitas Psychologica was founded in 2001 by its current editor Wilson López-López.

Universitas Psychologica is indexed in international databases such as ISI – Thomson, Scopus, PsycInfo, Psicodoc, DOAJ, Dialnet, Redalyc, SciELO, PEPSIC, CLASE.

In 2010 reached the 1st place among Latin American psychology journals, quartile two multidisciplinary journal ranking worldwide, with 1.283 Impact Factor within the Journal Citation Report (ISI – Thompson).

In the second semester of 2014 will publish and entire issue with research papers devoted to HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY. Guest Editors will be Ana María Talak (Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina), Hugo Klappenbach (Universidad Nacional de San Luis-CONICET, Argentina), Ana Jacó-Vilela (Universidade do Estado de Rio de Janeiro, Brasil) and Cristiana Facchinetti (Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Brasil).

The Journal will consider articles written in English and Spanish, resulting from original and unpublished research, and considered to be an advancement of knowledge in the field by the Editorial Committee and the peer-reviewers.

Manuscripts should not exceed 20 pages in length and must be completely formatted according to the APA guidelines (American Psychological Association, Publication Manual, 6th Edition in English or 3rd in Spanish). Instructions for authors are available on the website of the journal: http://revistas.javeriana.edu.co/sitio/psychologica/sccs/int.php?id=2&PHPSESSID=9394a0ae9051c2897af4c83c932cf96c

All manuscripts will be reviewed by two anonymous reviewers. Considering the masked review, manuscripts should include a separate title page with authors names and affiliations, and these should not appear anywhere else on the manuscript. Authors should make every effort to see that the manuscript itself contains no clues to their identities.

Manuscripts must be submitted up to november 15th, 2013 to the next mail: universitas.psychologica.sh@gmail.com

Call for Papers Psicologia em Pesquisa

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The Brazilian journal Psicologia em Pesquisa has issued a call for papers for a special issue dedicated to the history of psychology. The issue will be edited by Annette Mülberger (left) and Sérgio Cirino (right). Submissions, in English, Spanish or Portuguese, are due by July 31, 2013. The full call for papers follows below.

Psicologia em Pesquisa, a Brazilian journal edited by the Graduate Program in Psychology of the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, is preparing, together with the Working Group on the History of Psychology of the ANPEPP (Brazilian National Association of Graduate Training in Psychology), a Special International Issue dedicated to the History of Psychology. The Guest Editors are Sérgio Cirino (Federal University of Minas Gerais) and Annette Mülberger (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). Paper manuscript submissions are encouraged with a focus on topics related to the broad field of the history of psychology, including theoretical and methodological discussions, empirical studies and literature reviews. Manuscripts should follow the general guidelines of the APA (American Psychological Association, Publication Manual, 5th ed., Washington, DC) and cannot exceed 30 double-spaced pages (including references). For more details, see our website: http://www.ufjf.br/psicologiaempesquisa/1632-2/

Manuscripts can be submitted in English, Spanish or Portuguese to revista.psicologiaempesquisa@ufjf.edu.br.

The deadline for the submission of manuscripts to this special issue is July 31, 2013.

History of Psychiatry in the 20th Century

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The June 2011 issue of History of Psychiatry has just been released online. This is a special issue edited by Volker Hess (left) and Benoît Majerus on the history of twentieth century psychiatry. Among the articles included in the special issue are ones on post-WWII psychiatric changes, chlorpromazine trials in Heidelberg in the 1950s, and the deinstitutionalization of the history of twentieth century psychiatry. Titles, authors, and abstracts follow below.

“Writing the history of psychiatry in the 20th century,” by Volker Hess and Benoît Majerus. The abstract reads,

As editors of the special issue, we try to summarize here the historiographic trends of the field. We argue that the field of research is accommodating the diversity of the institutional, social and political developments. But there is no narrative in sight which can explain the psychiatry of the 20th century, comparable to the authoritative coherence achieved for the 19th century. In contrast, the efforts to extend these narratives to the 20th century are largely missing the most impressive transformation of psychiatric treatment — and self-definition.

“‘Therapeutic community’, psychiatry’s reformers and antipsychiatrists: Reconsidering changes in the field of psychiatry after World War II,” by Catherine Fussinger. The abstract reads, Continue reading History of Psychiatry in the 20th Century →