Christian psychopathology: psychiatry and knowledge for the sake of salvation in the early years of Francoism.

After World War II came to an end, General Franco's regime attempted to step aside from the defeated fascist states by emphasizing its Catholic character. The change of image culminated in 1947 with the establishment of Spain as a Catholic State by means of the Law of Succession. This process generated the national catholic ideology, which became, during the first decades of the dictatorship, the hegemonic instrument for the transformation of Spanish society in an anti-modernizing way. Scientific activity was not excluded from these changes, and a Catholic science conveying universal values and in harmony with the faith was strongly encouraged. One example of this Catholic science was the psychiatric approach developed by Juan José López Ibor during the first Francoist period, including the concepts of anagogy, the perfection instinct, psychagogy and, above all, anxious thymopathy and life anguish. This paper analyses the Christian background of these notions, their scientific repercussions and their social utility for the dictatorship. This paper emphasizes the consideration of these key notions of Spanish psychiatry during the First Francoism as knowledge of salvation, i.e., as conveyors of assumed eternal values in accordance with the prevailing view of Catholicism. On the other hand, it points to the functioning of these concepts as a part of the regulatory network designed and deployed by Francoism to promote submission and resignation in the Spanish population.