This book explores the relationship between socialist psychiatry and
political ideology during the Cold War, tracing Yugoslav 'psy' sciences
as they experienced multiple internationalisations and globalisations in
the post-WWII period. These unique transnational connections - with
West, East and South - remain at the centre of this book. The author
argues that the 'psy' disciplines provide a window onto the
complications of Cold War internationalism, offering an opportunity to
re-think postwar Europe's internal dynamics. She tells an alternative,
pan-European narrative of the post-1945 period, demonstrating that, in
the Cold War, there existed sites of collaboration and vigorous exchange
between the two ideologically opposed camps, and places like Yugoslavia
provided a meeting point, where ideas, frameworks and professional and
cultural networks from both sides of the Iron Curtain could overlap and
transform each other. Moreover, the book offers the first analysis of
East European psychiatrists' contacts with and contributions to the
decolonizing world, exploring their participation in broader political
discussions about decolonization, anti-imperialism and non-alignment.
The Yugoslav brand of East-West psychoanalysis and psychotherapy bred a
truly unique intellectual framework, which enabled psychiatrists to
think through a set of political and ideological dilemmas regarding the
relationship between individuals and social structures. This book offers
a thorough reinterpretation of the notion of 'communist psychiatry' as a
tool used solely for political oppression, and instead emphasises the
political interventions of East European psychiatry and psychoanalysis.
