Das Ringen um das Selbst. Schizophrenie in Wissenschaft, Gesellschaft und Kultur nach 1945

Abstract

In the last two decades or so, the history of the modern self has become an established field of research. With regard to the twentieth century, the ‘psy sciences’ (Nikolas Rose) and their discourses have gained particular attention since psychiatric, psychological and psychoanalytical knowledge played a central role in shaping the self and its social relations; vice versa, psy knowledge has always been permeated by cultural and social norms. In her dissertation Das Ringen um das Selbst—meaning ‘the struggle for the self’—Sandra Schmitt contributes to this body of research through an investigation of the complex history of schizophrenia in Western and Eastern Germany after 1945. More precisely, she examines the psychiatric debates on schizophrenia as well as its popular perception and portrayal in the media and in literature. Based mainly on a wide range of published sources, the study is less concerned with psychiatric practices or the experience of patients, focussing instead on the manifold discourses surrounding the highly contested concept of schizophrenia that can, to this day, be considered as paradigmatic for popular images of ‘madness’.