Mental Hygiene and Child Guidance in Post-war Greece: The Case of the Centre for Mental Health and Research, 1956–1970.

This paper focuses on the Centre for Mental Health and Research, an organisation launched in Athens in 1956 and that is still operational today. Its story up to 1970 is analysed as a case study of the development of mental hygiene and child guidance in Greece, where international movements became relevant within the context of the social transformations of the post-war period. Seizing the opportunities created by the ‘modernisation’ of Greece and the anxiety around it, the Centre managed to secure funding and develop a number of services and activities. It is concluded that, although it was not successful in its broader social projects, it had an impact at the micro-level of the family and played a part in opening up new possibilities for the ‘psy’ disciplines in post-war Greece beyond the pathological and the hospital, so addressing the ‘normal’ individual and society as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]