Abstract
The name Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Psychiatrie (DFA, German Institute for Psychiatric Research), which even today is part of the official name of the Max-Planck-Institut für Psychiatrie (Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry), makes reference to the origins of a scientific institution whose history can serve probably better than that of any other institution to illustrate the paths taken by modern psychiatry in Germany. In what follows it is shown that, in retrospect, traditional ideas often continued to be in use with surprising continuity during the eventful decades of the first half of the twentieth century. Beyond this, the history of the DFA reflects not only developments within psychiatry as a scientific discipline but also the interactions of psychiatry with what was taking place generally and politically during the period under discussion.
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