Discourse formation in mental health during the first half of the 20th century

Abstract

The discourse formation in mental health during the first half of the twentieth century has been influenced by the Mental Hygiene Movement and the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. As depositories of the biomedical thinking style, the aforementioned institutions have taken the lead in the field of mental health, which for the period under study suffered from a conceptual differentiation. In order to understand the influence that this thinking style had during the first half of the twentieth century, a review of the literature of the period was developed, using for this purpose a theoretical proposal that combined the discourse analysis of Michel Foucault and the sociology of knowledge of Ludwik Fleck. The results show a dominance of biomedical thinking style to address mental health, represented mainly in the use of prevention as a working strategy, and likewise found that were doctors, psychiatrists and public health professionals who took the time to themselves, as a collective of thinking, the authority to speak and act about the mental health of the population, relegating to the background other groups of thinking.[Mojica-Perilla M, Cadena-Afanador LP.Discourse formation in mental health during the first half of the 20th century. MedUNAB 2014; 16(3):118-126]