Abstract
This article demonstrates how psychoanalytic thought, especially ideas by Adler, Reik, Deutsch, and Alexander and Staub, informed forensic psychiatry in the Netherlands from the late 1920s. An analysis of psychiatric explanations of the crime of infanticide shows how in these cases the focus of (forensic) medicine and psychiatry shifted from somatic medicine to a psychoanalytic emphasis on unconscious motives. A psychoanalytic vocabulary can also be found in the reports written by forensic psychiatrists and psychologists in court cases in the 1950s. The new psychoanalytic emphasis on unconscious motives implied a stronger focus on the personality of the suspect. This article argues that psychoanalysis accelerated this development in the mid-twentieth century, contributing to the role of the psy-sciences in normalization processes.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 227-239 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | History of Psychiatry |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:I would like to thank Joost Vijselaar, Ruud Abma and Ed Jonker for their helpful comments on a previous version of this article. The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 770402; research project ?Forensic Culture. A Comparative Analysis of Forensic Practices in Europe, 1930-2000?).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.
Keywords
- 20th century
- Criminology
- forensic psychiatry
- infanticide
- motherhood
- psychoanalysis
