CFP: From Moral Treatment to Psychological Therapies: Histories of Psychotherapeutics from the York Retreat to the Present Day

Centre for the History of Psychological Disciplines, UCL

11-13th October 2013

Whilst the history of psychiatry has become a well developed field of

scholarship, there remain few examinations of psychotherapeutic

treatments beyond histories of psychoanalytic approaches. This

conference will bring together recent historical research on therapeutic

treatments for mental distress and disorder, from the 18th century up to

the present. It seeks to explore how such therapies were developed,

their institutional and intellectual contexts, and the debates and

controversies which may surround their use. ‘Psychotherapeutics’ is

defined in its broadest terms, and is intended to include approaches

that have been accepted by the medical or state establishments, as well

as those practiced outside official institutional settings. Such modes

of therapy could include moral treatment, mesmerism, mental healing,

‘talking’ therapies with a wide variety of theoretical bases, from

psychoanalysis to cognitive therapy, as well as professional

interventions such as those from psychiatric nursing, mental health

social work, occupational therapy, play therapy and art therapy.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• The philosophical basis of therapies, such as existential, gestalt or

behavioural approaches etc.

• Connections between the generation of therapeutic methods and their

orginators’ biographies.

• Institutional, economic and political influences on the development of

therapeutic practice.

• Psychotherapeutics in the health services.

• The professionalization and regulation of psychotherapeutic practice.

• The relationship between psychotherapeutic methods and other fields of

knowledge, e.g. pedagogy, criminology, the neurosciences etc.

• Debates and controversies about psychotherapeutic approaches.

• The development of specific approaches for different age groups.

• Psychotherapeutic concepts in popular culture and the media.

Abstracts of up to 500 words for 20 minute papers should be sent to

Sarah Marks at sarah.marks@ucl.ac.uk. Proposals for themed panels with a

maximum of four participants are also welcome. The deadline for

individual papers and panel proposals is the 10th June 2013.

Participants will be notified whether their papers have been accepted by

20th June 2013.