WISHING YOU GOOD
MENTAL HYGIENE: AMERICAN
PSYCHIATRY IN THE
PROGRESSIVE ERA
Eric Ward
Introduction
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The mental hygiene movement was an early 20th century
American reform movement that aimed to apply
psychoanalytic principles to the management of society
James Jackson Putnam and other American physician reformers
championed the work of Freud and sought to use his ideas to
transform society
In order to legitimize their intervention in society, psychiatrists
framed issues such as education policy and foreign affairs in
medical terms
Education Policy
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Citing research on child development that showed personality
to be more malleable during childhood, reformers pushed for
psychiatrists and social workers to play greater roles in the
schools
Mental hygiene proponents such as William Alanson White
argued that schools should promote personality formation
rather than more traditional academic goals
Reformers focused their efforts on identifying and ‘curing’
juvenile delinquents while they were still in their formative
years
Foreign Policy
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Reformers conceptualized war
as a form of mental illness, or
‘globalunacy,’ that could be
stamped out with
psychoanalysis
WWII-era psychiatrists took
to the pages of newspapers
offering their ‘prescription for
peace’
Conclusions
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The progressive era was a period of increased social
engagement for psychiatrists and other mental health
professionals
By cloaking their work in medical terms, reformers gave their
interventions an air of scientific neutrality that was often
unwarranted
Psychiatrist reformers at times resorted to coercion and social
control to advance their aims
Despite their best intentions, reformers were ultimately
unsuccessful in their efforts
Works Cited
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Burnham, John Chynoweth. (1960). Psychiatry, Psychology and the Progressive Movement.
American Quarterly. 12(4), 457-465.
Cohen, S. (1983). The Mental Hygiene Movement, the Development of Personality and the
School: The Medicalization of American Education. History of Education Quarterly, 23(2), 123149.
Conrad, Peter. (1992). Medicalization and Social Control. Annual Review of Sociology. Vol. 18,
209-232.
Petrina, Stephen. (2006). The Medicalization of Education: A Historiographic Synthesis. History
of Education Quarterly. 46(4), 503-531.
Tucker, E. Bruce. (1978). James Jackson Putnam: An American Perspective on the Social Uses of
Psychoanalysis, 1895-1918. The New England Quarterly. 51(4), 527-546.
Van de Water, Marjorie (1946, February 9). Prescription for Peace. Science News-Letter, 9091.