When the World Health Organisation was founded in 1948, a central goal was to use novel methods to study mental health across countries and cultures. High stakes were placed on child development research to build a better understanding of the etiology of mental illness. This talk explores how these early attempts to build a universal child psychology were closely aligned to post-war struggles to define children’s collective rights as a protected group. The talk will consider why child diagnoses such as autism, ADHD, conduct disorder, and childhood depression have encountered local resistance, shaped by national health and welfare objectives. I will argue that this has created splits and factions in the 21st Century that have compromised shared understandings of children's developmental needs and universal rights.
Bonnie Evans: "Universal psychology and the rights of the child: The influence of the 1957 International conference on Psychiatry".
Dr Bonnie Evans is a Senior Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London, and author of The Metamorphosis of Autism (Manchester University Press). She has a PhD from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University, and has held a research fellowship at King’s College, London's Centre for Medical Humanities. She has lectured in the international history of child sciences, psychology and eugenics. In addition to her academic work, she writes for popular publications such as Aeon Magazine, and has appeared on BBC television.
Published Jan. 4, 2023 11:06 AM
- Last modified May 12, 2023 5:39 PM