Mental health
Mental hygiene is the science of protecting and obtaining mental health.
History
The term mental hygiene was used by the German psychiatrist Robert Sommer (1864-1937) in 1900, who in 1896 founded the Psychiatric Hospital of Giessen. However, the label only gained through the efforts of Clifford Whittingham Beers to improve the situation of the mentally ill, a greater awareness: " The beginning of the modern mental hygiene in the literature with the publication of the book by Clifford W. Beers (USA), A mind did found Itself ' (Eng. 1941) moored. "
Beers book was based on his own experiences as a patient. Beers founded in 1909, the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (now Mental Health America ) to continue its reform of the current treatment of mentally ill persons. In 1913 he founded the Clifford W. Beers Guidance Clinic in New Haven ( Connecticut ).
Ghetto Theresienstadt
The concept of mental hygiene, also called mental hygiene, played a role in ghetto Terezin / Theresienstadt concentration camp, where the Viennese physician and founder of existential analysis Viktor Frankl had established a " Department of Mental Health " - a kind of crisis intervention. Most new arrivals were unprepared and therefore shocked by what they found in Theresienstadt. Frankl believes that the chances of survival are greater with appropriate assistance, and asked Regina Jonas for their cooperation. Their job was in receipt of the new arrivals. It also set up under these conditions continued their teaching and preaching.
The imprisoned in Theresienstadt philosopher Emil Utitz also used this term; already on 24 November 1942 he gave a talk entitled The hygiene of Soul in Theresienstadt.
Academic institutionalization
Heinrich Meng, who was one of the founders of the Frankfurt Psychoanalytic Institute / Sigmund Freud Institute in 1929, followed by the dissolution of the Institute in 1933 to offer a Swiss education institution according to Basel where in the fields of education and mental hygiene his teachings continue to develop. After four years, he was appointed lecturer at the University of Basel in 1945 and appointed to the specially erected for him the first European Department of Mental Hygiene. Here Meng has set up a research center in the post-war years, to the scholars from all over the world traveled. With the generous support Swiss publishers, he set up a research library of Mental Hygiene. At the same time in Switzerland and in other countries founded societies for mental hygiene, which were dedicated to the diverse, predominantly practical tasks of mental health.
German Federation for Mental Hygiene
The German Association of Mental Health was founded in 1924 by the German psychiatrist R. Sommer. The General Medical Journal of Psychotherapy and Mental Health was published monthly from 1928 and spread throughout Europe from the beginning of the institution founded in Berlin on December 1, 1927 General Medical Society for Psychotherapy ( AÄGP ), which had many members in non- German speaking countries. In 1930 it was renamed to the Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie and its border areas, including the Medical Psychology and Mental Hygiene and has since published by Ernst Kretschmer, Marburg, and Robert Sommer, casting, under the editorship of Rudolf Allers, Vienna, and Arthur Kronfeld and Johannes Heinrich Schultz Berlin.
On September 20, 1928, the first meeting of the German Association for Mental Hygiene was held in Hamburg.
The first International Congress ( First International Congress on Mental Hygiene ) was held in May 1930 in Washington DC instead.
The Second German Conference on Mental Hygiene was held in Bonn on 21 May 1932, the main topic: the eugenic tasks of mental hygiene.
On July 16, 1933 Ernst Rudin took over the chairmanship of the Association for Mental Hygiene, the previous chairman summer was forced to resign, the psychiatrist Hans Romans he was the managing director and he also named the bandage around in German Federation for Mental hygiene and eugenics.
Tasks and levels of mental hygiene
The CW Beers and Adolf Meyer in 1908 postulated main tasks of the mental hygiene are:
These tasks are to be met through the promotion of social welfare and cooperation with public and private welfare institutions.
Mierke K. (1967, p 8) provides three levels of Mental Hygiene: Preventive Mental Hygiene has the health of the individual and society to the destination. The restitutive Mental Health makes every effort to take early corrective measures in regenerative and life crises or conflict situations. Curative Mental Hygiene already takes care of existing restrictions to cure this with clinical or psychotherapeutic procedures.
The obtain, or meet formulated by E. Schomburg 6 basic needs of life ( love, security, recognition / confirmation / success experiences, space for a free, creative activity, experiences with sentimental value, self-esteem ) is the aim of mental hygiene.