DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
MODULE HANDBOOK
2008-2009
PSYCHOLOGICAL SUBJECTS: IDENTITY, HEALTH AND
CULTURE IN TWENTIETH CENTURY BRITAIN
Convenor: Dr. Mathew Thomson
-1-
Table of Contents
Module Description
3
Syllabus:
Seminar 1: Popular Psychology: Victorian to Modern
4
Seminar 2: The Discipline of Psychology
5
Seminar 3: Education and Childhood
5
Seminar 4: Industry
6
Seminar 5: Healthcare
7
Seminar 6: War
8
Seminar 7: Politics
8
Seminar 8: The Permissive Society and Beyond
9
Seminar 9: Workshop
N/A
Illustrative Bibliography
10
-2-
Module Description
This module explores the popularisation and influences of psychology in twentiethcentury Britain. It is particularly suited to students on the MAs in Modern British
History and the History of Medicine, though students from other MAs are equally
welcome. It draws in particular on themes developed in the module tutor’s
Psychological Subjects (2006). Each week we will consider one of the themes of this
book. The module begins with a focus on the popularisation of psychology and
psychoanalysis at the start of the century, inviting reflection on continuities with
Victorian phenomena such as Mesmerism, Phrenology, and Spiritualism, and
questioning the centrality of Freud and psychoanalysis in traditional accounts. It then
turns to the emergence of the discipline and profession of psychology at the turn of
the century, to the influence of psychology within education, industry, and healthcare,
and to the role of psychology in relation to war and politics. Finally it concludes with
the subject of psychology and sex, and the role of psychology and a culture of therapy
in the emergence of what some have called a culture of narcissism in the last decades
of the century. Each week, in addition to taking advantage of an increasingly rich
secondary literature, students will be encouraged to examine readily available primary
sources. Then in the final week, students will have the opportunity to present original
findings arising from these sources. This will be a useful opportunity for developing
ideas towards the required 5,000 word essay.
-3-
Seminar 1: Popular Psychology: Victorian to Modern
Readings:

Cooter, Roger, The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the
Organisation of Consent in Nineteenth-Century Britain (1984).

Dixon, Joy, Divine Feminine: Theosophy and Feminism in England (2001).

Forrester, John, ‘”A Whole Climate of Opinion”: Rewriting the History of
Psychoanalysis’, in M. Micale and R. Porter (eds.), Discovering the History of
Psychiatry (1994), pp. 174-90.

Hazelgrove, J., Spiritualism and British Society Between the Wars

Oppenheim, Janet, Shattered Nerves: Doctors, Patients and Depression in
Victorian England, 1850-1914 (1991).

Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychic Research in England,
1850-1914 (1985).

Owen, Alexander, The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in
Late Victorian England (1989).

Owen, Alexander, The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and Culture of
the Modern (2004).

Owen, Alexander, ‘The Sorceror and his Apprentice: Aleister Crowley and the
Magical Exploration of Victorian Subjectivity’, Journal of British Studies, 36
(1997), 99-133.

Rapp, Dean, ‘The Early Discovery of Freud by the British General Reading
Public, 1912-1919’, Social History of Medicine, 3 (1990), 217-45.

Richards, Graham, ‘Britain on the Couch: The Popularization of Psychoanalysis
in Britain, 1918-1940’, Science in Context, 13 (2000), 183-230.

Thomson, Mathew, ‘Practical Psychology’ in Psychological Subjects, pp. 17-53.

Winter, Alison, Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain (1998)
-4-
Seminar 2 : The Discipline of Psychology
Readings:

Bunn, G., Lovie, A. & Richards, G., Psychology in Britain: Historical Essays and
Personal Reflections (2001).

Hearnshaw, Leslie, A Short History of British Psychology, 1840-1940 (1964).

Kuklick, H., The Savage Within: The Social History of British Anthropology,
1885-1945 (1991).

Rose, Nikolas, The Psychological Complex: Psychology, Politics and Society in
England, 1869-1939 (1985), pp. 1-10.

Smith, Roger, ‘Does the History of Psychology have a Subject?’, History of the
Human Sciences, 1 (1988), 147-77.

Soffer, Reba, Ethics and Society in England: The Revolution in the Social
Sciences 1870-1914 (1978).

Thomson, ‘Reframing the Discipline’, Psychological Subjects, pp. 54-75.

Thomson, Mathew, ‘The Popular, the Practical, and the Professional:
Psychological Identities in Britain, 1901-1950’, in G. Bunn et al (eds.),
Psychology in Britain, pp. 115-32.
Seminar 3 : Education and Childhood
Readings:

Rose, Nikolas, The Psychological Complex (1985).

Steedman, Carolyn, Childhood, Culture and Class: Margaret McMillan, 18601931 (1990).

Steedman, Carolyn, ‘”The Mother Made Conscious”: The Historical
Development of a Primary School Pedagogy’, History Workshop Journal, 20
(1985), 149-63.

Steedman, Carolyn, Strange Dislocations: Childhood and the Idea of Human
Interiority, 1780-1930 (1995).

Thom, Deborah, ‘The Healthy Citizen of Empire or Juvenile Delinquent? Beating
and Mental Health in the UK’, in M. Gijswijt-Hofstra & Hilary Marland (eds.),
Cultures of Child Health (2003) pp. 189-212.

Thom, Deborah, ‘Wishes, Anxieties, Play and Gestures’, in R. Cooter (ed.), In
the Name of the Child: Health and Welfare, 1880-1940 (1992), pp. 200-19.

Thomson, ‘Psychology and Education’, Psychological Subjects, pp. 109-39.

Thomson, Mathew, The Problem of Mental Deficiency: Eugenics, Democracy,
and Social Policy in Britain, 1870-1959 (1998).

Wooldridge, Adrian, Measuring the Mind: Education and Psychology in England,
1860-1990 (1994).
-5-
Seminar 4: Industry
Readings:

Beales, H.L. and Lambert, R.S., Memoirs of the Unemployed (1934).

Cooter, Roger, ‘Malingering and Modernity’ in Roger Cooter, Steve Sturdy &
Mark Harrison (eds.), War, Medicine and Society (1999), pp. 125-48.

McKibbin, Ross, ‘The “Social Psychology” of Unemployment in Interwar Britain’,
in McKibbin, The Ideologies of Class: Social Relations in Britain, 1880-1950
(1991), pp. 228-58.

Rabinbach, Anson, The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of
Modernity (1990).

Rose, Nikolas, Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self (1989), pp.
55-118.

Thomson, Mathew, ‘Psychology and the Problem of Industrial Civilisation’,
Psychological Subjects, pp. 140-72.
-6-
Seminar 5: Healthcare
Readings:

Armstrong, David, The Political Anatomy of the Body: Medical Knowledge in
Britain in the Twentieth Century (1983), chapters 3 & 7.

Clark, Michael, ‘The Rejection of Psychological Approaches to Mental Disorder
in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Psychiatry’, in Andrew Scull
(ed.), Madhouses, Mad-Doctors, and Madmen: The Social History of Psychiatry
in the Victorian Era (1981).

Long, Vicky, ‘Changing Public Representations of Mental Illness in Britain,
1870-1970’ Ph.D. thesis (University of Warwick, 2004)

Pines, Malcolm, ‘The Development of the Psychodynamic Movement’, in Berrios
and Freeman (eds.), 150 Years of British Psychiatry Volume 1 (1991(, 206-31.

Roy Porter, ‘Two Cheers for Psychiatry! The Social History of Mental Disorder in
Twentieth-Century Britain, in G. Berrios & H. Freeman (eds.), 150 Years of
British Psychiatry: Volume 2 The Aftermath (1996), 383-406.

Rait, S., ‘Early British Psychoanalysis and the Medico-Psychological Clinic’,
History Workshop Journal, 58 (2004), 63-85.

Richards, Graham, ‘Psychology and the Churches in Britain, 1919-1939:
Symptoms of Conversion’, History of the Human Sciences, 13 (2000), 57-84.

Root, Sheryl, ‘Healing, Touch, and Medicine, c. 1890-1950’ Ph.D. thesis
(University of Warwick, 2006).

Rose, Nikolas, The Psychological Complex (1985).

Shorter, Edward, From Paralysis to Fatigue: A History of Psychosomatic Illness
in the Modern Era (1992).

Thomson, ‘Medicine and the Psychological’, Psychological Subjects, pp. 173206.

Thomson, Mathew, ‘Mental Hygiene as an International Movement’, in Paul
Weindling (ed.), International Health Organisations and Movements, 19191939 (1995), pp. 283-304.

Thomson, Mathew, ‘Neurasthenia in Britain’, in M. Gijswijt-Hofstra & Roy Porter
(eds.), Cultures of Neurasthenia: From Beard to the First World War (2001),
pp. 77-96.

Thomson, Mathew, The Problem of Mental Deficiency: Eugenics, Democracy
and Social Policy in Britain, 1870-1959 (1998)

Westwood, Louise, ‘A Quiet Revolution in Brighton: Dr Helen Boyle’s Pioneering
Approach to mental health Care, 1899-1939’, Social History of Medicine, 14
(2001), 439-57.
-7-
Seminar 6: War
Readings:

Barham, Peter, Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War (2004).

Leese, Peter, Shell Shock: Traumatic Neurosis and the British Soldiers of the
First World War (2002).

Leys, Ruth, Trauma: A Genealogy (2000)

Riley, Denise, War in the Nursery: Theories of the Child and Mother (1983).

Roper, Michael, ‘Between Manliness and Masculinity: The “War Generation” and
the Psychology of Fear in Britain, 1914-1950’, Journal of British Studies, 44
(2005), 343-62.

Rose, Nikolas, Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self (1989), pp.
15-42.

Shephard, Ben, A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists, 1914-1994
(2000).

Stone, Martin, ‘Shellshock and the Psychologists’, in W. Bynum, R. Porter & M.
Shepherd (eds.), The Anatomy of Madness, Volume 2 (1985), pp. 242-71.

Thomson, ‘Psychology and the Mid-Century Crisis’, Psychological Subjects, pp.
209-49.
Seminar 7: Politics
Readings:

Nuttall, Jeremy, Psychological Socialism: The Labour Party and the Qualities of
Mind and Character, 1931 to the Present (2006).

Nuttall, Jeremy, ‘Psychological Socialist; Militant Moderate: Evan Durbin and
the Politics of Synthesis’, Labour History Review, 68 (2003), 235-52.

Nuttall, Jeremy, ‘The Labour Party and the Improvement of Minds: The Case of
Tony Crosland’, The Historical Journal, 46 (2003), 133-53.

Sluga, Glenda ….

Thomson, Mathew, ‘Constituting Citizenship: Mental Deficiency, Mental Health
and Human Rights in Inter-War Britain’, in C. Lawrence & A. Mayer (eds.),
Regenerating England: Medicine and Culture in Inter-War Britain (2000), pp.
231-50.

Trotter, Wilfred, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War (1919)
-8-
Seminar 8: The Permissive Society and Beyond
Readings:

Collins, Marcus, Modern Love: An Intimate History of Men and Women in
Twentieth-Century (2003).

Crossley, Nick, ‘Fish, Field, Habitus and Madness: On the First Wave Mental
Health Users Movement in Britain’, British Journal of Sociology, 50 (1999),
647-70.

Francis, Martin, ‘Tears, Tantrums, and Bared Teeth: The Emotional Economy of
Three Conservative Prime Ministers, 1951-1963’, Journal of British Studies, 41
(2002), 354-87.

Furedi, Frank, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age
(2004).

Giddens, Anthony, Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in the Late
Modern Age (1991).

Heelas, Paul, The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the
Sacralization of Modernity (1996).

James, Oliver, Britain on the Couch (1997).

Lasch, Christopher, The Culture of Narcissism (1980).

Nudelman, F. ‘Beyond the Talking Cure: Listening to the Female Testimony on
The Oprah Winfrey Show’, in Pfister, J. & Schnog N., Inventing the
Psychological: Toward a Cultural History of Emotional Life in America (1997),
pp. 297-315.

Offer, Avner, Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since
1950

Rose, Nikolas, ‘Assembling the Modern Self’, in Roy Porter (ed.), Rewriting the
Self: Histories from the Renaissance to the Present (1997).

Rose, Nikolas, Governing the Soul, pp. 240-59.

Sennett, Richard, The Fall of Public Man (1977).

Waters, Chris, ‘Havelock Ellis, Sigmund Freud and the State: Discourses of
Homosexual Desire in Interwar Britain’, in L. Doan & L. Bland (eds.), Cultural
Sexology: Labelling Bodies and Desires, 1890-1940 (1998), pp. 165-79.
-9-
Illustrative Bibliography
G. Bunn, A. Lovie & G. Richards (eds.), Psychology in Britain: Historical Essays and Personal
Reflections (2001)
L. Hearnshaw, A Short History of British psychology, 1840-1940 (1964)
J. Oppenheim, Shattered Nerves: Doctors, Patients and Depression in Victorian England (1991)
J. Pfister & N. Schnog (eds.), Inventing the Psychological: Toward a history of Emotional Life in
America (1997)
N. Rose, The Psychological Complex: Psychology, Politics and Society in England 1869-1939
(1985).
N. Rose, Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self (1989).
B. Shephard, A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists, 1914-1994 (2000).
M. Thomson, The Problem of Mental Deficiency: Eugenics, Democracy and Social Policy in
Britain, 1870-1959.
A. Wooldridge, Measuring the Mind: Education and Psychology in England, c. 1860-1990
(1994).
- 10 -