Divergences in American psychiatry during the Depression: Somatic psychiatry, community mental hygiene, and social reconstruction<FNR>*</FNR><FN>*Editor's Note: This article, based on a paper delivered at the 19th Annual Conference of the European Society for the History of the Human Sciences in August 2001 in Berlin, Germany, has been designated as the winner of the first ESHHS/JHBS Early Career Award. For details about this award and its rules, see the Spring 1999 (Volume 35, Number 2) issue of this journal. </FN>

The differences between somatic psychiatrists and mental hygienists, already apparent earlier, became much more pronounced during the Depression years, partly as a consequence of their different perspectives on this social crisis. Somatic psychiatrists, emboldened by the apparent success of new medical treatment methods, reasserted the central position of the mental hospital within psychiatry, attempted to improve the discipline's position within medicine, and promoted basic research. Mental hygienists, following the ideal of prevention, proposed far-reaching programs of community mental hygiene to alleviate widespread mental distress. A small group of mental hygienists embraced socialism and advocated measures of radical social reconstruction. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]