Federal funding and medicalized psychoanalysis shaped American psychiatry’s distinct path

Evidence

The conflicts between neurologists and psychiatrists were marginal, the role of universities in the regulation of the psychiatric profession was much more significant than in France, and federal institutions made a major contribution to the development of mental health policies. Thus, the National Institute of Mental Health, created in 1946, not only had the financial means to promote ambitious policies but also quantitative research inconceivable in Europe. Also, psychoanalysts were doctors (by decision of the American Psychoanalytic Association in 1927), and psychoanalysis was integrated into medical institutions. — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self, 682

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Psychology and psychiatry co-evolved with changing norms of the self — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing…, 730; FDA drug-approval rules forced psychiatry into standardized diagnoses — Alain Ehrenberg, The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing…, 687