The War Inside: Psychoanalysis, Total War, and the Making of the Democratic Self in Postwar Britain (Studies in the Social and Cultural History of Modern Warfare)
Cambridge University Press, 9/12/2013
EAN 9781107035133, ISBN10: 1107035139
Hardcover, 284 pages, 22.6 x 16 x 2.4 cm
Language: English
The War Inside is a groundbreaking history of the contribution of British psychoanalysis to the making of social democracy, childhood, and the family during World War II and the postwar reconstruction. Psychoanalysts informed understandings not only of individuals, but also of broader political questions. By asserting a link between a real 'war outside' and an emotional 'war inside', psychoanalysts contributed to an increased state responsibility for citizens' mental health. They made understanding children and the mother-child relationship key to the successful creation of a democratic citizenry. Using rich archival sources, the book revises the common view of psychoanalysis as an elite discipline by taking it out of the clinic and into the war nursery, the juvenile court, the state welfare committee, and the children's hospital. It traces the work of the second generation of psychoanalysts after Freud in response to total war and explores its broad postwar effects on British society.
Introduction
the war inside
1. The psychological study of anxiety
from World War I to World War II
2. Under fire
children and psychoanalysts in total war
3. The Hitler inside
Klein and her patients
4. Psychoanalysts on the radio in war and peace
from collective to domestic citizenship
5. Psychoanalyzing crime
the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency (ISTD), 1931–45
6. Towards the therapeutic state
the ISTD during the postwar years, c.1945–60
7. Hospitalized children, separation anxiety, and motherly love
psychoanalysis in postwar Britain
Bibliography.