Mental hygiene

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Mental hygiene ( ψυχή psyché 'breath', ' soul ', 'mind' as well as ὑγιεινή [τέχνη] hygieiné [téchne] "[art] serving health", derived from ὑγίεια hygíeia "health"), also called mental hygiene , is the teaching of protecting and achieving mental health .

history

For the first time in the USA in 1843 the American physician William Sweetzer used the expression mental hygiene . The German term psychohygiene was used in 1900 by the German psychiatrist Robert Sommer (1864–1937), who founded the Psychiatric Clinic in Giessen in 1896 . However, the name only became better known through the efforts of Clifford Whittingham Beers to improve the situation of the mentally ill : “The beginning of modern mental hygiene is in the literature with the publication of the book by Clifford W. Beers (USA) A mind that found itself (German 1941) moored. "

Beer's book was based on his own experiences as a patient. Beers founded the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (now Mental Health America ) in 1909 to continue reforming the treatment of those considered mentally ill. In 1913 he founded the Clifford W. Beers Guidance Clinic in New Haven, Connecticut .

The term mental health (and mental health ) has gone out of fashion for quite some time; In the last few decades, publications on this topic can usually be found under the terms salutogenesis or resilience .

Theresienstadt ghetto

The concept of mental hygiene played a role in the Theresienstadt ghetto / Theresienstadt concentration camp , where the Viennese doctor and founder of logotherapy and existential analysis Viktor Frankl had set up a "department for mental hygiene" - a kind of crisis intervention . Most of the arrivals were unprepared and therefore shocked by what they found in Theresienstadt. Frankl assumed that with appropriate help the chances of survival would be greater and asked Regina Jonas for her cooperation. Their job was to receive the newcomers. In addition, she continued teaching and preaching under these conditions .

The philosopher Emil Utitz imprisoned in Theresienstadt also used this term; on November 24, 1942, he gave a lecture there entitled The Hygiene of Soul in Theresienstadt .

Academic institutionalization

Heinrich Meng , who was one of the founders of the Frankfurt Psychoanalytical Institute / Sigmund Freud Institute in 1929, accepted an offer from a Swiss educational institution to Basel after the institute was dissolved in 1933, in order to continue teaching there in the fields of education and psychohygiene develop. After just four years he was given a teaching position at the University of Basel and in 1945 he was appointed to the first European chair for mental health, which was set up especially for him . Meng set up a research center here in the post-war years, to which scholars from all over the world made pilgrimages. With the generous support of Swiss publishers, he built a scientific library on mental hygiene. At the same time, societies for mental hygiene were founded in Switzerland and in other countries, dedicated to the diverse, mainly practical tasks of mental health protection .

German Association for Mental Hygiene

The German Association of Mental Hygiene was founded in 1924 by the German psychiatrist R. Sommer. The General Medical Journal for Psychotherapy and Psychological Hygiene was the organ of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy (AÄGP), which was founded in Berlin on December 1, 1927 and had numerous members in non-German-speaking countries, published monthly from 1928 onwards and distributed throughout Europe from the start . In 1930 it was renamed the Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie and its border areas including medical psychology and mental hygiene and since then has been published by Ernst Kretschmer , Marburg, and Robert Sommer , Gießen, under the editorship of Rudolf Allers , Vienna, as well as Arthur Kronfeld and Johannes Heinrich Schultz , Berlin.

On September 20, 1928, the first meeting of the German Association for Mental Hygiene took place in Hamburg .

The First International Congress on Mental Hygiene was held in Washington DC in May 1930.

The second German conference for mental hygiene took place in Bonn on May 21, 1932 and had the main topic: The eugenic tasks of mental hygiene.

On July 16, 1933, Ernst Rüdin took over the chairmanship of the Association for Mental Hygiene, the previous chairman, Sommer, was forced to resign, he made the psychiatrist Hans Römer managing director and also renamed the association the German Association for Mental Hygiene and Racial Hygiene.

Tasks and levels of mental hygiene

The main tasks of mental hygiene postulated by CW Beers and Adolf Meyer in 1908 are:

  1. Care for the maintenance of mental health, prevention of mental and nervous diseases and defective states;
  2. Perfecting the treatment and care of the mentally ill;
  3. Education about the meaning of psychological anomalies for the problems of education , economic life, crime and generally human behavior.

These tasks should be fulfilled by promoting social welfare and cooperation with public and private welfare institutions .

Karl Mierke (1967, p. 8) sees three levels of mental hygiene:

  1. The preventive mental hygiene aims to keep the individual and society healthy.
  2. The restitutive Mental Health strives early in life crises or conflict situations regenerative initiate and corrective measures.
  3. The curative Psychohygiene already takes care of existing restrictions to those with clinical or psychotherapeutic cure statement.

In 1975, Eberhard Schomburg named maintaining or achieving the 6 basic needs he had formulated as the goal of mental hygiene:

  1. love
  2. safety
  3. Recognition / confirmation / sense of achievement
  4. Space for free, creative activity
  5. Memorable experiences
  6. Self-esteem

See also

literature

  • H. Kretz (Ed.): Lebendige Psychohygiene 2000 plus . Eberhard, Munich 2002.
  • K. Mierke: Mental hygiene in everyday life . Bern, Stuttgart 1967.
  • Tomas Plänkers : Idea and Reality of Mental Hygiene. Biography and work of Heinrich Mengs (1887-1972) . In: Helmut Kreuz (Ed.): Lebendige Psychohygiene . Eberhard Verlag, Munich 1996, pp. 17-41.
  • E. Schomburg: Mental hygiene and special school . In: HE Ehrhardt (Ed.): Aggressiveness, Dissociality, Psychohygiene . Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 1975, Bellingen in the Westerwald.
  • Thomas Szasz : The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement . Reprint, Syracuse University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8156-0461-0 , German Die Fabrikation des Wahnsinns , Olten / Freiburg i.Br. 1974.

Web links

Wiktionary: Psychohygiene  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wallace Mandell: Origins of Mental Health. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 1995, accessed April 19, 2016 .
  2. ^ University Clinic Giessen and Marburg GmbH: The history of neurology. ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Text from A mind that found itself online (Engl.) First published in 1907
  4. ↑ Mental hygiene during geriatric and nursing training ( memento from July 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 258 kB)
  5. ↑ Clifford W. Beers Guidance Clinic, Inc., Building strength in children and families since 1913 ( Memento of February 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (Engl.)
  6. ↑ Erich Stern : Mental hygiene in the general hospital and in the sanatorium. In: Paths to People. Volume 9, 1957, pp. 177-187.
  7. ↑ haGalil.com
  8. ↑ Elena Makarova, Sergei Makarov, Victor Kuperman: University Over the Abyss, The story behind 520 lecturers and 2,430 lectures in Theresienstadt concentration camp 1942–1944. Second Edition, Verba Publishers Ltd., Jerusalem 2004, ISBN 965-424-049-1
  9. ↑ compare Elisabeth Zimmermann: Psychohygiene und Pädagogik. Heinrich Meng (1887-1972). Dissertation, University of Zurich, Pedagogical Institute, Zurich 1994. The summary reads: “In 1938, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Basel set up a lecturer for mental hygiene for the first time in Europe , and Heinrich Meng was given the lectureship . He held this position until his retirement in 1957. ”(ie only one professorship from 1938 to 1957.)
  10. ↑ further information on Heinrich Meng (1887–1972) in: Marion Grimm: Alfred Storch (1888–1962): Daseinsanalyse und anthropologische Psychiatrie. Dissertation, Giessen 2004, pp. 97, 98.
  11. ↑ Heinrich Meng on memory
  12. ↑ [1]
  13. ^ History of psychotherapy in Germany in the 20th century
  14. ^ Astrid Ley: Forced sterilization and the medical profession, background and goals of medical action 1934-1945. P. 215
  15. ↑ Mental Hygiene Time Magazine, Monday, May 19, 1930 (Eng.)
  16. ↑ [dto.]
  17. ^ = V. Catalog of works by Ilse Szagunn up to 1945 and selected articles up to 1971 / 1932d Second German Conference for Mental Hygiene. Advances in Health Care 6 (1932), p. 281
  18. ↑ Uwe Gerrens: Medical Ethos And Theological Ethics: Karl and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the dispute about forced sterilization and "euthanasia" under National Socialism. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 1996, p. 68, ISBN 978-3-486-64573-6 ; [2]
  19. ^ Adolf Meyer: a Swiss-German professor operating in America, coined the term "Mental Hygiene"