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Epidemiology of mental disorders emerged in the post-1945 era at the intersections of different areas of knowledge. Given its ambitions, the Stirling County Study provides an instructive case study. It is also a good example of how the epidemiology applied methodological skills from social sciences. This paper aims, first, to reconstruct one of the first episodes in the development of psychiatric epidemiology. Its second purpose is to provide a detailed description of interdisciplinarity at work, and to examine its effects. After explaining some of the major features of the Stirling County Study, I emphasize the links between some of the first results, particularly regarding young people as a population at risk, and the job market after the Great Depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of deinstitutionalisation and the introduction of community care in the latter part of the twentieth century have revolutionised mental-health service provision across Europe, although implementation, timing and services have varied widely in different countries. This article compares the changing dimensions of mental-health provision in post-independence Ireland with that in England, and will shed light on the current state of mental healthcare in both countries. The article calls for more research into the impact of deinstitutionalisation, such as the challenges faced in the community for those in need of continuing care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern psychiatry, drug addiction is considered as mainly a mental disorder and a brain disease problem, of complex aetiology. In addition, drug addiction has been characterized as a loss of willpower or akrasia, and even a sin. In this essay, I analyse Maimonides' (Rambam's) treatises More Ha-Nevuchim (Guide for the Perplexed) and Shemona Perakim (The Eight Chapters). He asserts that the soul is one, but has many different faculties (functions) and is intrinsically linked to the body. I argue that drug addiction is a psychological, social-moral deviance, as well as straying from God's path. Addiction is a disorder of the soul and body. Consequently, healing should include social-moral guidelines as well as physical/bodily health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Classic Text is an outline of the Stirling County Study as conceptualized by Alexander H Leighton. It was first presented at a conference held in 1949 organized by the Milbank Memorial Fund, an American philanthropic foundation. The meeting brought together 30–40 experts from across North America. Leighton succinctly explained his frame of reference for the epidemiology of mental disorders and the methodology of the community-based study he conducted in Nova Scotia. The introduction to the text explains contextual points, certain specificities of Leighton's framework, and the discussions that surrounded it, largely dominated by a group of Harvard professors, including Erich Lindemann and John E Gordon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post-World War II international mental health movement placed significant emphasis on the concept of the 'social environment', a true paradigm shift in thinking about the causes of mental illness. Rather than focusing on individual risk factors, experts and policy-makers began to consider the interplay between social context and mental health and illness. Also, during this period, quantification gained prominence within the expanding field of Western psychiatry. Eventually, the concept of the 'social' became fragmented into quantifiable social determinants that could be correlated with mental illness and subjected to systematic neutralization. This trajectory paved the way for the prevailing biomedical psychiatric epidemiology. This broader inquiry challenges us to redefine our understanding of the 'social' in the context of mental health research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]