History, Memory, and Profession: A View of American Psychiatry Through APA Presidential Addresses, 1883–2003

Abstract

The address of the retiring president of the American Psychiatric Association has been a traditional part of the annual meeting of the association since 1883. The presidential address, which has explicitly been exempted from general discussion or criticism, has become an opportunity for the elected leader of the association to reflect on the state of the profession. Over the last 120 years, the presidents of the association have themselves engaged with the history of psychiatry in ways that reflect the changes in psychiatry of the time. In the process, memory has served a professionalizing purpose, as some aspects of psychiatry's history have been remembered while others have not. In the presidential addresses, history is not just a story about the past but also a story about psychiatry's self-definition and its future.

Instituto de Psiquiatria - FMUSP: o contexto histórico social em São Paulo entre as décadas de 1920 a 1950 para recepção da psiquiatria como um saber médico

“…Mais do que qualquer outra especialidade m‚dica, os tratamentos e diagn"sticos em Psiquiatria s•o afetados e influenciados pelas questOEes s"cio-culturais vigentes (Marx, 1992;F‹brega, 2001;Shorter, 2008). Estudar a hist"ria da Psiquiatria n•o ‚ apenas entender o passado desta †rea do conhecimento, mas tamb‚m compreender a sua autodefini€•o como ciŽncia e suas perspectivas futuras (Hirshbein, 2004).…”