In the late 1930s, when colonial psychiatry was well established in the Maghreb, the diagnosis ‘psychosis of civilization’ appeared in some psychiatrists’ writings. Through the clinical case of a Libyan woman treated by the Italian psychiatrist Angelo Bravi in Tripoli, this article explores its emergence and its specificity in a differential approach, and highlights its main characteristics. The term applied to subjects poised between two worlds: incapable of becoming ‘like’ Europeans – a goal to which they seem to aspire – but too far from their ‘ancestral habits’ to revert for a quiet life. The visits of these subjects to colonial psychiatric institutions, provided valuable new material for psychiatrists: to see how colonization impacted inner life and to raise awareness of the long-term socio-political dangers.

中文翻译：

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“文明的精神病”：殖民定位的诊断

在 1930 年代后期，当殖民精神病学在马格里布建立起来时，一些精神病学家的著作中出现了“文明精神病”的诊断。本文通过意大利精神病学家Angelo Bravi在的黎波里治疗的利比亚妇女的临床案例，探讨了它的出现及其在差异化方法中的特殊性，并突出了其主要特征。该术语适用于介于两个世界之间的主体：无法成为“像”欧洲人——他们似乎向往的目标——但离他们的“祖先习惯”太远，无法恢复平静的生活。这些受试者对殖民精神病院的访问，为精神病学家提供了宝贵的新材料：了解殖民如何影响内心生活并提高对长期社会政治危险的认识。