Bøker i Mental Health in Historical Perspective-serien

This open access book investigates psychiatry in Uganda during the years of decolonisation. As Pringle shows, however, the history of psychiatry during the years of decolonisation remained one of marginality, and ultimately, in the context of war and violence, the decolonisation of psychiatry was incomplete.

Within this context, the book aims at stoking and informing debate and conversation about how to prevent mental illness and improve mental health in the years to come.Chapters 3, 10, and 12 of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com

The book argues that the colonial lunatic asylum failed to assimilate into Indian society and therefore remained a failed colonial-medical enterprise. Lunatic asylums left a legacy of historical trauma for the indigenous community because of their coercive and custodial character.

The book relates the history of post-war psychiatry, focusing on deinstitutionalisation, namely the shift from asylum to community in the second part of the twentieth century. After the Second World War, psychiatry and mental health care were reshaped by deinstitutionalisation.

This is the first book to address the history of psychiatry under Communism in Central and Eastern Europe, from the Soviet Union to East Germany. It brings together new research addressing understandings of mental health and disorder, treatments and therapies, and the interplay between politics, ideology and psychiatry.

The relationship between migration and mental health is controversial, contested, and pertinent. In a highly mobile world, where voluntary and enforced movements of population are increasing and likely to continue to grow, that relationship needs to be better understood, yet the terminology is often vague and the issues are wide-ranging.