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Gerhart Zeller s prize-winning 1961 study of the history of the concept of unitary psychosis has never before been published in German or English. To date, the manuscript remains by far the best historical account of the early development of the concept in Germany.
The editors introduction analyzes Zeller s monograph on three temporal levels. First, as a rediscovered original contribution to historical scholarship on nineteenth century psychiatric classification. Second, as an historical document in its own right, situated on the threshold between the murderous atrocities of the Holocaust and the psychiatric reforms of the 1970s and 80s (Psychiatrie-Enquête). Third, as a unique contribution to post-Neo-Kraepelinian discourse and to the critiques of contemporary psychiatric nosologies (DSM) and research agendas (RDoC). In helping to elucidate the historical evolution of dimensional approaches to psychiatric classification, the monograph is likely to resonate within wider current biomedical trends toward personalized medicine and molecular diagnostics, and to find a readership among psychiatric practitioners and historians alike.
List of contents
Chapter 1. A History of Unitary Psychosis: A Contribution to the Historical Epistemology of Nineteenth Century Psychiatry.- Chapter 2. The History of Unitary Psychosis Before Kraepelin.- Chapter 3. Die Geschichte der Einheitspsychose vor Kraepelin.
About the author
Gerhart Zeller (1922-2006) was a German psychiatrist who trained under Ernst Kretschmer at the University of Tübingen in the 1950s. After 1962 he worked as chief physician at the Landesnervenklinik in Spandau near Berlin. He was responsible for establishing the neuropsychiatric ward in the nearby Hospital Havelhöhe, which he then headed until his retirement. In 1975 he established the patient-aid association Die Brücke, which to this day works to bridge the gap between hospitals and local communities by providing extramural housing and psychosocial services to chronically ill patients. During the 1980s, Zeller was intimately involved in the implementation of reforms to the psychiatric infrastructure in Berlin and was a member of the federal Ministry of Health’s Advisory Board on Psychiatric Reforms.
Eric J. Engstrom is an historian of psychiatry and a research associate in the Department of History at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He received his BA from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR, his MA from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, and his Ph.D (in History) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published widely in the history of psychiatry, including a monograph on Clinical Psychiatry in Imperial Germany with Cornell University Press. He has been a member of the working group on the “History of Psychiatry” at the Max-Planck-Institute for Psychiatry in Munich, co-editor of the 9 volume edition of Emil Kraepelin’s correspondence, and a lead member of the German Research Foundation (DFG) research group “Cultures of Madness (1870-1930)”. He is currently researching and writing a book on the history of psychiatric governance in Imperial Berlin, 1880-1914.
German E. Berrios is the Emeritus Professor of the Epistemology of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, and a Life-Fellow at Robinson College. He has published widely on neuropsychiatry and on conceptual and historical aspects of psychopathology. He is the author of numerous books, including a History of Clinical Psychiatry (with Roy Porter) and The History of Mental Symptoms: Descriptive Psychopathology since the 19th Century. He has been chairman of the History of Psychiatry Section of the World Health Organization, and was founding editor of the journal History of Psychiatry.
Summary
Gerhart Zeller’s prize-winning 1961 study of the history of the concept of unitary psychosis has never before been published in German or English. To date, the manuscript remains by far the best historical account of the early development of the concept in Germany.
The editors’ introduction analyzes Zeller’s monograph on three temporal levels. First, as a rediscovered original contribution to historical scholarship on nineteenth century psychiatric classification. Second, as an historical document in its own right, situated on the threshold between the murderous atrocities of the Holocaust and the psychiatric reforms of the 1970s and ’80s (Psychiatrie-Enquête). Third, as a unique contribution to post-Neo-Kraepelinian discourse and to the critiques of contemporary psychiatric nosologies (DSM) and research agendas (RDoC). In helping to elucidate the historical evolution of dimensional approaches to psychiatric classification, the monograph is likely to resonate within wider current biomedical trends toward personalized medicine and molecular diagnostics, and to find a readership among psychiatric practitioners and historians alike.
