Abstract

FERNANDEZ SARASOLA, Ignacio. Poison for the mind: Mental health experts' involvement in the US antico-mic campaign (1940-1960). Rev. Asoc. Esp. Neuropsiq. [online]. 2016, vol.36, n.129, pp.63-78. ISSN 2340-2733.

Between 1940 and 1960 comic books were in the United States the target of an intense campaign developed by citizens who thought that they were a bad reading for their children as well as responsible for an increase in juvenile delinquency. An inflection point arrived when psychiatrist and psychologists took part in this campaign. Their leader was German-born psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, who charged comic books of damaging children's mind due to their content full of violence, sex, horror and racism. Many other psychiatrists and psychologist participated in the discussion: some of them followed Wertham's ideas, but other thought that he was wrong as there was no scientific evidence about this damage. The involvement of mental health specialists was essential for the anti-comic book campaign, as they were quoted by newspapers, radio and television and even called as experts at the US Senate's hearings about the relationship between comic books and infantile behavior. For this reason, Wertham and his colleagues are seen today as responsible for the fall in the sales of comic books at the end of the 1950s.

Keywords : criminology; violence; sexual behavior; child; adolescent; reading; comic books.

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