title: The syndrome of accident proneness (Unfallneigung): why psychiatrists did not adopt and medicalize it.
abstract: In the World War I period, psychologists in Britain and Germany independently and simultaneously originated the idea of accident proneness (Unfallneigung). This distinctive syndrome of suffering a series of accidents was logically attractive for psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, especially as a pattern of unconsciously motivated deviant and self-destructive behaviour. Yet except for some mid-twentieth-century interest by psychosomatics specialists, psychiatrists did not systematically embrace the syndrome except occasionally as a symptom of other psychiatric conditions, thus showing that there were limits to the extent to which twentieth-century psychiatrists would medicalize patterns of behaviour.
authors.affiliation: Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus 43210-1367, USA. Burnham.2@osu.edu
authors.forename: John C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Burnham
mesh_terms: D000056:Accident Prevention / Q000266:history*; D000057:Accident Proneness; D000062:Accidents, Occupational / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000266:history*; D011572:Psychoanalysis / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000266:history*