History, Memory, and Profession: A View of American Psychiatry Through APA Presidential Addresses, 1883–2003

The address of the retiring president of the American Psychiatric Association has been a traditional part of the annual meeting of the association since 1883. The presidential address, which has explicitly been exempted from general discussion or criticism, has become an opportunity for the elected leader of the association to reflect on the state of the profession. Over the last 120 years, the presidents of the association have themselves engaged with the history of psychiatry in ways that reflect the changes in psychiatry of the time. In the process, memory has served a professionalizing purpose, as some aspects of psychiatry’s history have been remembered while others have not. In the presidential addresses, history is not just a story about the past but also a story about psychiatry’s self-definition and its future.