Patrick Boucheron
Histoire des pouvoirs en Europe occidentale, XIIIe-XVIe siècle
Collège de France
Année 2025-2026
Madness at Home in Tokyo: The Psychiatrist, the Patient, and the Family in Tokyo, 1920-1945
Akihito Suzuki
Université de Tokyo
Résumé
The family of a mentally ill patient was one of the most important agents in the general picture of insanity in society. Family members such as husband, wife, father, mother, and children played crucial roles in bringing the insane member to medical or religious practitioners. In Europe during the early modern period, family members in countries such as France, England, Germany and the Netherlands collaborated with medical or religious professionals or practitioners to care for, control, or even fabricate mentally ill patients. In such situations of domestic process, whether the problem was a real mental illness did not always matter: the domestic circumstances or social trouble were often major issues.