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This article analyses the case of the “Dragon of Sheikh Sou”, the allegedperpetrator of four crimes committed in 1959 and 1963 in Thessaloniki, which terrifiedand fascinated the public, as a case study for the construction of “perverted” sexuality inGreece during this period. Combining journalistic and medical (forensic and psychiatric)accounts, it argues that sexual violence was turned into a central dimension of thesecrimes, as, within the sociocultural transformations of the time (mainly urbanisationand new gender roles), anxieties about sexuality intensified. The article concludes thatin late-1950s and early-1960s Greece, “perverted” sexual desires remained more closelyconnected to vice than illness, and were understood as a male psychiatric pathology onlyto the degree that they could contribute to the normalisation of a supposedly “moderate”male sexual violence, but not to the extent that they required psychiatric treatment.

This book provides an overview of a diverse array of preventive strategies relating to mental illness, and identifies their achievements and shortcomings. The chapters in this collection illustrate how researchers, clinicians and policy makers drew inspiration from divergent fields of knowledge and practice: from eugenics, genetics and medication to mental hygiene, child guidance, social welfare, public health and education; from risk management to radical and social psychiatry, architectural design and environmental psychology. It highlights the shifting patterns of biological, social and psychodynamic models, while adopting a gender perspective and considering professional developments as well as changing social and legal contexts, including deinstitutionalisation and social movements. Through vigorous research, the contributors demonstrate that preventive approaches to mental health have a long history, and point to the conclusion that it might well be possible to learn from such historical attempts. The book also explores which of these approaches are worth considering in future and which are best confined to the past. Within this context, the book aims at stoking and informing debate and conversation about how to prevent mental illness and improve mental health in the years to come.

Following the Second World War, adolescent medicine emerged in the United States as a speciality focussed on addressing the physical, social and psychological problems of teenagers. While acne had been thought of as an inevitable consequence of maturation, the focus on teen health transformed the condition into a high priority. In particular, a deluge of medical studies raised concerns over the potentially serious psychological implications for teenage acne sufferers. Seeking to lessen the emotional impact of the condition, health professionals employed treatments such as tranquillisers commonly used for treating psychiatric patients, surgical techniques to minimise scarring and alternative therapies like hypnotherapy. The chapter argues that adolescent acne was not only constructed as a threat to the emotional well-being of teenage Americans (and thus the social order of the United States), but was also portrayed as an ailment which had to be overcome at all costs.

During the late 1960s psychiatry in the United States began to replicate the unrest in society at large and activism was a significant facet of that development. Just as widespread social movements across the country focused on the Vietnam War, civil rights for blacks and the advancement of feminism, there was also unrest among the nation’s mental health practitioners. Reform and revolutionary ideas characterised the therapists who sought change in American mental health. Radical psychiatry was aimed at preventing overdiagnosis, improving outmoded practices and tackling mental health by curing a 'sick society'. But was this reform or revolution? This chapter showcases several debates about change in American psychiatry. It highlights that there was agreement on the need to transform psychiatry, yet few saw eye to eye on what that meant and how it was to be done.

The introduction provides a historical context for the psychiatric deinstitutionalisation that occurred in most Western countries during the second half of the twentieth century. It presents a working definition of deinstitutionalisation, but also teases out some of the nuances connected to the term. The introduction begins by examining the precursors of deinstitutionalisation prior to the Second World War, including the impact of the child guidance and mental hygiene movements, before exploring the impact of the War on psychiatry and ideas about mental health. It then proceeds to analyse the specific triggers of deinstitutionalisation, touching on the intellectual, political, economic, technological and cultural factors that helped to drive the process. The introduction also touches on how deinstitutionalisation varied in different countries, and outlines the ramifications of the process in recent decades. It concludes by summarising the volume’s chapters and reflecting on what can be learned from the legacy of deinstitutionalisation.