Reel worlds: reconstructing the history of postwar child psychotherapy through fiction film

Snelson, Tim (2026) Reel worlds: reconstructing the history of postwar child psychotherapy through fiction film. History of Psychiatry. ISSN 0957-154X

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Abstract

This article uses British drama film No Place for Jennifer (1950) to argue for the evidential value of staged content of real psychotherapeutic places (Institute of Child Psychology) and practices (Margaret Lowenfeld’s World Technique). In the absence of ‘real’ documentary footage, discoveries of recreated therapeutic spaces within largely forgotten genre films can help reconstruct histories of the ‘psy’ sciences whilst offering insight into the contestations specific sites and practices provoked. Employing Baron’s (2013) reformulation from ‘documentary’ to ‘archival document’, it demonstrates that content extracted from previously disregarded films can fill archival lacunas whilst expanding ‘what can be said’ about the past and how it can be said.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	film,cinema,psychotherapy,child psychology,margaret lowenfeld,institute of child psychology,3* ,/dk/atira/pure/researchoutput/REFrank/3_
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Media, Language and Communication Studies
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Media Equality Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Heritage and History Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > East Anglian Film Archive Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Film, Television and Media Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Gender and Its Intersections
Related URLs:	https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	01 Apr 2026 13:30
Last Modified:	05 Apr 2026 06:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102698
DOI:	10.1177/0957154X261430318

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