Volker Roelcke – författare

International Relations in Psychiatry: Britain, Germany, and the United States to World War II addresses a crucial period in the history of psychiatry by examining the transfer of conceptual, institutional, and financial resources and the migration of psychiatrists between Britain, the United States, and Germany.The decades around 1900 were crucial in the evolution of modern medical and social sciences, and in the formation of various national health services systems. The modern fields of psychiatry and mental health care are located at the intersection of these spheres. There emerged concepts, practices, and institutions that marked responses to challenges posed by urbanization, industrialization, and the formation of the nation-state. These psychiatric responseswere locally distinctive, and yet at the same time established influential models with an international impact. In spite of rising nationalism in Europe, the intellectual, institutional and material resources that emerged in thevarious local and national contexts were rapidly observed to have had an impact beyond any national boundaries. In numerous ways, innovations were adopted and refashioned for the needs and purposes of new national and local systems.International Relations in Psychiatry: Britain, Germany, and the United States to World War II brings together hitherto separate approaches from the social, political, and cultural history of medicine and health care and argues that modern psychiatry developed in a constant, though not always continuous, transfer of ideas, perceptions, and experts across national borders. Contributors: John C. Burnham, Eric J. Engstrom, Rhodri Hayward, Mark Jackson, Pamela Michael, Hans Pols, Volker Roelcke, Heinz-Peter Schmiedebach, Mathew Thomson, Paul J. Weindling, Louise Westwood Volker Roelcke is Professor and Director at the Institute for the History of Medicine, Giessen University, Germany.Paul J. Weindling is Professor in the History of Medicine, Oxford Brookes University, UK.Louise Westwood is Honorary Research Reader, University of Sussex, UK.

Die Einführung neuartiger Therapieformen in der deutschen Psychiatrie von 1918 bis 1945 im internationalen Kontext und Vergleich.Der Erste Weltkrieg markierte in den Psychiatrien aller kriegführenden Staaten eine Wende, galt doch die scheinbar erfolgreiche Behandlung der »Kriegsneurotiker" als therapeutischer Durchbruch. Es begann das Zeitalter der »heroischen Therapien", die den therapeutischen Erfolg ohne Rücksicht darauf suchten, ob sie den Patienten einem Risiko aussetzten, ihm Schmerzen zufügten oder ihm Angst machten.

Since the end of World War II, Nazi medical atrocities have been a topic of ambivalent reactions and debates, both in Germany and internationally: An early period of silence was followed by attempts of victims and representatives of medical organisations to describe what happened. Varying narratives developed, some of which had a stabilizing function for the identity of the profession, whereas others had a critical and de-stabilizing function. In today''s international debates in the field of medical ethics, there are frequent references to Nazi medical atrocities, in particular in the context of discussions about research on human subjects, and on euthanasia. The volume analyses the narratives on Nazi medical atrocities, their historicity in different stages of post-war medicine, as well as in the international discourse on biomedical ethics.