The side effects of the technique. Psychiatric patients and institutions at the time of electroshock, psychosurgery and delayed neuroleptics (1940s-1970s)

Psychiatry out of the asylum. For a new history of madness in the contemporary age
By Hervé Guillemain
English

The connection of the states of war and peace between powers in Europe and in the rest of the world was one of the greatest challenges for the early modern diplomacy. From the middle of the 16th century it was accepted that the peace treaties signed in Europe were not valid for the other parts of the world. From then, the so-called “lines of amity” introduced a partition of the worldwide space between, on the one hand, a part ruled by the commitments of the law of nations and, on the other hand, a part that would always be in a precarious situation, permanently between war and peace. In the 17th century, the express extending of the commitments of the alliances and of the peace treaties outside Europe was an important development in the practice of a real global diplomacy. But its terms and conditions were still to be defined. One of the options was to reach an agreement on the schedule of the implementation of the treaties based upon the distance with Europe. This article aims to show that the setting up of a concurrence of the states of war and peace between Europe and the rest of the world was a long process of a construction of a global diplomatic territory through the paradoxical acknowledgement of singular situations.

Keywords

  • therapies
  • psychiatry
  • patients
  • controversies
  • France
  • 20th century
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