Inaugural lecture Gemma Blok: De psychiatrisering van Nederland na 1960

On Thursday 5 September, Gemma Blok, Professor of History of Psychiatry at Utrecht University’s Faculty of Humanities, will give her inaugural lecture entitled ‘Niemand meer normaal. De psychiatrisering van Nederland na 1960’.

Films and social media

ADHD, trauma, narcissist: terms from the world of psychiatry and psychotherapy have entered everyday language. In films and series, protagonists with autism, alcohol abuse, or depression have become commonplace. On social media, hashtags related to mental health are trending. They are expressions of the psychiatrisation of society: a complex interplay between clients and loved ones, practitioners and culture through which psychiatric institutions, knowledge, and practices affect more and more people and areas of life.

Psychiatry new style

In her oration, Blok discusses this process of psychiatrisation, which gained momentum from the 1960s onwards. On the one hand, psychiatry came under heavy fire as a coercive power structure that imposed diagnoses and psychopharmaceuticals. Paradoxically, the foundations for further psychiatrisation were also laid after 1960. Psychological problems were removed from the taboo and the line between ‘crazy’ and ‘normal’ blurred. Psychiatry became a central theme in media and culture. Pills and talking were often portrayed as tools for the liberated individual. 

New-style psychiatry promised to be an accomplice in the pursuit of emotional openness, self-development, and social integration of people with troubles. Thus, psychiatry as a field became intertwined with progressive values and with making sense of modern existence – gaining social significance and appeal as a result.

This inaugural lecture will be given in Dutch.