The treatment of functional psychosis in Spain at the beginning of the XX century (1917-1931)

Abstract

This paper studies the introduction of the new physical therapies in the years prior to the Second Spanish Republic. It concludes that the physical treatments in force in the international literature were introduced early in Spain and were put into practice by the most important psychiatrists, although in few cases. Given the generalized criticism on the effi cacy of psychiatry as a specialty, there was a general bias towards a positive evaluation of the effi cacy of the physical therapies by the new generation of Spanish psychiatrists that did not occur in other countries of our setting. The psychiatrists who disagreed professionally with the above-psychiatrists opposed this tendency, there not being suffi cient empirical support for the opinion of any group.