The pathologies in the ways of being child and adolescent: analysis of the internment in Hospital Psiquiátrico São Pedro between 1884 and 1937

Abstract

This study is part of a project that objectives to trace a historical panorama of discursive nets that characterize what society considers divergent at a determined moment, as well as introducing the paradigmatic changes concerning the diagnosis of what is considered pathological in the ways of being a child or an adolescent in different times of history. The theoretical and methodological reference is based on the Michel Foucault’s genealogical perspective, and also in his analysis about abnormal people and psychiatric power. This article introduces the analyses of the period between 1884 and 1937. It evidences that discursive nets about pathologies in the childhood and adolescence’s territory identify some discontinuities and continuities: discontinuities from diagnosis found, but continuities about social exclusion strategies.