Psychochirurgie et traitements de choc en psychiatrie: L’exemple du Canada francophone au cours de l’après-guerre

Isabelle’s project examines the practices and effects of somatic therapies in psychiatry during the postwar period, focusing on Saint-Jean-de-Dieu Hospital in Montreal between 1945 and 1960. This era was marked by the development of insulin treatments, electroconvulsive therapy, psychosurgery, and neuroleptics, reflecting the therapeutic ambitions of the medical specialty at the time. While these practices have received scholarly attention, their concrete application and effects on patients remain underexplored in historiography, particularly in Canadian history.

Drawing on 125 patient records, Isabelle’s project asks how these treatments were legitimized, implemented, and experienced in a French-Canadian psychiatric hospital. It adopts a “history from below” approach, centering patient voices alongside material culture and lived experience within a transnational framework tracking knowledge circulation between Europe and North America. Sources include patient files, medical publications, and institutional archives, though the records reflect professional perspectives rather than patients’ direct experiences.