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“Dictating the Suitable Way of Life”: Mental Hygiene for Children and Workers in Socialist Mexico, 1934–1940
Author(s) -
Molina Andrés Ríos
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of the history of the behavioral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.216
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1520-6696
pISSN - 0022-5061
DOI - 10.1002/jhbs.21591
Subject(s) - mental health , mental hygiene , politics , consolidation (business) , government (linguistics) , context (archaeology) , hygiene , articulation (sociology) , commission , social work , sociology , public administration , medicine , public relations , political science , psychiatry , law , business , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , accounting , pathology , biology
After the M exican R evolution (1910–1920), an ambitious project of national reconstruction began in which education and health were two priorities in the consolidation of a new nation. In this context of social, cultural, and political transformation, mental hygiene was a field that made it possible to articulate the professional practice of psychiatrists with the project of the nation promoted by postrevolutionary governments. In M exico, the mental hygiene movement was headed by the same doctors who professionalized the practice of psychiatry and made it a specialized field of knowledge. The first generation of psychiatrists managed to integrate mental hygiene into health and education policies during the socialist administration of president L ázaro C árdenas; a phenomenon that made evident the articulation between mental hygiene, social medicine, and nationalist discourse. Discussion will focus on proposals made from the perspective of mental hygiene as a function of two social sectors regarded as priorities by the C árdenas government: children and workers.