Retrieving the Past for a Usable Present: Anarchism, Psychoanalysis and Revolutionary Transformation in the Early 20th Century

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between different expressions of psychological therapy, alternative movements such as anarchism, and the potential for revolutionary social and personal transformation. By drawing on the history of socio‐political movements in different European countries in the early 20th century, we suggest that approaches to healthcare and to social and individual transformation have much to learn from what is generally a forgotten or underestimated past. While the circumstances that engendered radical movements dedicated to psychoanalysis, therapy, and social change were the product of specific contexts, the current precariousness of European health systems and the increasing incidence of psychological damage invite a critical look to the past for inspiration for our embattled present. Germany in the 1890s and Spain in the 1930s are focused upon in particular with these aims in mind. All translations from the original Spanish in this article are our own unless otherwise stated.