engleski

Diagnosing, Treating and Managing Psychopathy in Northern Adriatic 20th Century Postwar Periods

This paper will investigate the role, characteristics and mutual connections of Psychopathy and Moral insanity as diagnoses in the first half of the 20th century, in particular in the northern Adriatic borderland area during the first half of the 20th century, with a focus on the transition between World War One and the long post war period, and on the political shift between Austria-Hungary and Italy. A basic question during our research has been: which set of concepts were used by the medical stuff of that period in that specific area and in the larger frame of Central Europe, Italy and Yugoslavia, in diagnosing different forms of personality disorders? and also: how these concepts relate to the modern day concepts adopted while diagnosing psychopathy? As part of the same endeavour, we asked ourselves: Is it possible to detect changes in the scientific and medical, but also cultural and political spheres, related to the roles, policies and approaches of mental health institutions and practitioners, particularly in the definition of such vague and fluid mental illnesses’ categorizations such as those related to personality disorders? were the conditions that we associate to antisocial personality disorders and in particular to psychopathy considered a mental disease? Was this set of mental disorders evaluated in a particular way in the case of patient soldiers? Were the soldiers evaluated somehow differently? was this mental status or “disease” more common among soldiers and post- soldiers? did the connection to the military played any role for this particular set of patients in the evaluation and diagnoses performed by the practitioners?

Psychopathy, moral insanity, treatment, Trieste asylum

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