218. The expression and social significance of the themes of community care and collective healing in german literary works
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Background In recent years, German literary studies have paid increasing attention to the topic of mental health, especially the way community care and collective healing are presented in texts and their social and cultural implications. Studies have pointed out that literary narratives can map collective attitudes toward mental disorders in specific historical periods, but there is still a lack of systematic analysis of the themes of community care and collective healing in German literature. The research aims to explore the expression, evolutionary trajectory and social significance of the themes of community care and collective healing in German literary works through text mining and quantitative analysis, in order to reveal how literature participates in constructing public discourse on mental health care. Methods The study selected a total of 120 representative German literary works from the 19th to the 21st century, covering novels, dramas and prose genres. First, corpus tools were used to extract keywords and topic modeling from the text, and identify semantic clusters related to "community," "nursing," "healing" and "collective." Secondly, the content analysis method was used to code paragraphs containing related topics, and an analysis framework including four dimensions of "nursing subject," "healing method," "collective interaction model" and "social context" was established. Finally, combined with historical periodization and social policy changes, a statistical analysis was conducted on the frequency, intensity and narrative function of thematic expressions in works from different periods. Chi-square tests were used to compare differences in thematic expression intensities in different periods, and p-values were reported to evaluate statistical significance. Results The analysis shows that the theme of community care mostly appeared in the form of religious or family communities in 19th-century works, accounting for 35.2% of the total related paragraphs, and was often associated with individual sacrifice narratives. Since the mid-20th century, this theme has gradually been integrated with institutionalized care and social rehabilitation projects, with the frequency rising to 58.7% in post-war literature, and collective healing scenes are mostly presented as dialogue and collaborative processes. In 21st century works, community care is more diversified, involving new collectives such as immigrant communities and digital communities. Related paragraphs account for 72.4%, and are often accompanied by criticism of mental health stigma. Statistical tests show that there are significant differences in theme expression intensity between different historical periods, with a p value of less than 0.01. Discussion Research shows that the themes of community care and collective healing in German literary works not only reflect social changes in mental health care, but also participate in shaping public cognition and policy discourse. Especially since the second half of the 20th century, literary narratives have gradually emphasized the role of collective agency and social support networks, echoing the community mental health movement of the same period. Future research can further explore the impact of this type of literary expression on public attitudes in conjunction with reader acceptance surveys. In addition, it can be extended to cross-cultural comparison, analyzing the similarities and differences of nursing themes in different literary traditions, and providing narrative resources for contemporary mental health advocacy.
Source: Schizophrenia Bulletin
Author: Fangfang Zhang
Institution: Henan Polytechnic Institute
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7128782641
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