“Women in de-ranged Realities” – Discourses and practices in managing “insanity” in the West German Women’s Health Movement from the 1970s to the 1990s

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Karen Nolte
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 419057548

Using a gender historical approach, this subproject (SP) investigates the erosion of the guiding difference of normal and insane. Its aim is to analyse on the one hand how the figure of the in#sane was approached and handled in the Women’s Health Movement and on the other hand to examine shifts in the professional self-understanding of feminist protagonists who cared for people with psychological crises or disorders during the 1990s. In the middle of the 1970s the first health centres for women and feminist therapy centres were founded in West Germany. In this project we will conduct a micro-historic study in the city of Göttingen because in this small university a large number of feminist projects emerged, which were specifically aimed at women in psychological crises, and Göttingen’s women also became active nationwide in the field of feminist therapy. The protagonists of the Women’s Health Movement were decidedly critical of both society and the field of psychiatry, interpreting the pathologization and psychiatrization of women as an expression of patriarchal social structures. Hence, our first question in this research project is what alternative concepts to “insanity” and therapy the protagonists of the Women’s Health Movement developed. We are interested in exploring the overlaps and differences in comparison to the anti-psychiatric movement and to what extent the discussions and practices of the Women’s Health Movement created alternative concepts on the difference of “normal” or “insane”. Using case studies of individual initiatives and protagonists we will analyse the tension arising out of the intended depathologization of women and their simultaneous therapeutization. The second aspect of the project is the investigation of the conflict-ridden professionalisation of feminist projects during the 1990s and the self-understanding of the protagonists in these projects that transformed from Women’s Self-Help Centres into Consulting Offices that employed trained consultants and therapists. Thirdly, we will ask what form of alternative knowledge or “counter-knowledge” was established within the context of feminist therapy, how gender was conceptualised in this counter-space with respect to the in#sane, and what inclusions and exclusions were produced.The SP adds to argumentative elements into the FOR (1) feminist critique of society and psychiatry, and (2) concepts of self-empowerment, subjectivisation in the context of feminist therapy and self-help.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 3031: NORMAL#VERRÜCKT Zeitgeschichte einer erodierenden Differenz
• International Connection: Austria, Canada
• Cooperation Partners: Professorin Dr. Nora Ruck; Professorin Alexandra Rutherford, Ph.D.