Dangerous(ly) insane. West-German forensic psychiatry in the field of opposing flows (1960–2000)

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The opening of West German psychiatric institutions in the wake of the "Psychiatrie-Enquete" stands as a palpable sign of the normalisation of madness in the late XX Century. Since the 1970s, however, the emptying of institutions has been paralleled by a growth of forensic psychiatry units (Maßregelvollzug). These opposing trends are commonly framed either under the rubrics of re- or trans-institutionalisation, or as cipher of a dawning "isk-society". Taking the move from this debate, the proposed project focusses on the development of West-German Forensic Psychiatry, from an institution devoted to "Betterment and Security" ("Sicherung und Besserung") to one of "Security and Betterment" ("Besserung und Sicherung"). In parallel, it explores the figure of the “dangerous(ly) insane”, as it emerged from – and was entangled in – the psychiatric reform. Following the path of the "Anthropology of the Present", we will reconstruct the complex network of interactions among discourses, practices and structures of the past, which directly influence the present (i.e. a dispositive), laying bare its constitutive ambivalences.This project aims first at trailing the figure of the "dangerous insane" in its development within the specialist discourse. Secondly, we will investigate the category of "dangerous insanity" in its socio-political dimension and scope. In the third place, we will investigate the mundane meaning of de-institutionalisation to the daily life of the concerned actors, against the background of the establishment and trans-formation of a reformed forensic psychiatry. The focus of the project is the interplay between discoursively created and mediated knowledge-systems of "dangerous insanity" and their tangible effects on forensic diagnostics, treatment and prognostics. We propose to study the Forensic-Psychiatric Clinic, Moringen (today Maßregelvollzugszentrum Niedersachsen/Moringen) as a paradigmatic case. On the basis of its fairly continuous series of clinical and administrative records, we will investigate how the scientific and socio-political discourses on dangerousness informed the daily lives and routines in forensic psychiatric units.