Self-development and civic virtue: mental health and citizenship in The Netherlands (1945-2005).

This article is about the development of mental hygiene and mental health care in the Netherlands from the Second World War to the present, aiming to explore its relation to social and political modernization in general and the changing meanings of citizenship and civic virtue in particular. On the basis of three different ideals of individual self-development, my account is divided into three periods: 1945-1965 (guided self-development), 1965-1985 (spontaneous self-development), and 1985-2005 (autonomous self-development). In the conclusion, I will elaborate some more general characteristics of Dutch mental health care in its sociopolitical context.