Interned women and society. Understanding psychiatric commitments (involuntary admissions) in Belgium (1910-1970)

This project studies the social regulation of women who were marginalised through confinement in asylums and psychiatric hospitals in Belgium between 1910 and 1970. What are the behaviours that lead to commitment to establishments reserved for those who do not respond to the demands of society? Behind the circumstances of confinement in psychiatric spaces lies the question of what “madness (female version)” is deemed to consist. The project helps provide a better understanding of how mental illness can be viewed in terms of its interactions with society. We know that gender determines both the definition and treatment of insanity. In the context of a weak historiography for Belgium, the project seeks to break away from the stereotypical model of the "mad woman" and to replace mental deviance in a nuanced social context, which includes families, the medical world and the State. A bottom-up approach serves to emphasise the viewpoint of the players involved. The psychiatric institution is part of the definition, identification and treatment of “mad behaviour”. It is also the relay of local solutions and as such needs to be placed into a broader context. Different analysis scales are applied to understand the link between medical diagnosis and social prejudice. The psychiatric commitments (involuntary admissions) are examined through local records containing requests of internment, through the registers and personal files of women interned in psychiatric hospitals and through the records of women transferred from prisons to psychiatric hospitals. The time frame of the project crosses the development of confinement institutions and gives perspective on the de-psychiatrisation movement and its implications.