From defence mechanism to insufficient bladder control: Dutch experts on enuresis nocturna in an age of developing child sciences (c. 1950-1990)

This article discusses the conceptualisation of enuresis nocturna by Dutch experts between c.1950 and 1990, years in which across West new child sciences rapidly developed. Today, bedwetting is conceived as a mental illness caused mixture nature- nurture-bound factors. Have organic environmental causes always figured twins, even post-war decades predominant environmentalism psychological theory clinical practice? Or only more recent biological turn psychiatry responsible for revaluation organicism expert discourses on aetiology treatment childhood illnesses such nocturna? Using Ian Hacking’s dynamic nominalism interpretive framework, shows that, case, factors continued to be referred after biologising children’s problems, alongside an increasingly important role brain-related, physiological genetic nocturna.