Mental Health as Civic Virtue: Psychological Definitions of Citizenship in the Netherlands (1900-1985)

This chapter discusses how, in the netherlands from around 1900 until the mid-1980s, the idea of ‘citizenship’ acquired new definitions in the context of developing ‘mental hygiene’ and outpatient mental health care. Formulating views about the position of individuals in modern society and their potential for self-development, psychiatrists and other mental health workers linked mental health with ideals of democratic citizenship. Thus, they were involved in the liberal-democratic project of promoting not only productive, responsible, and adaptive citizens, but also autonomous, self-conscious, and emancipated members of an open society.keywordsmental healthmental health carewelfare statepublic mental healthcivic virtuethese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.