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The study explores the common effort of social psychiatrists in Eastern and Western Germany to help people suffering from mental health issues to gain more self-determination and social participation and to make mental health care more humane from the 1960s onwards. At the same time, it provides a contrastive analysis of the social psychiatric concepts developed by the psychiatrists Karl Peter Kisker, Klaus Weise and the philosopher Achim Thom. A thorough analysis of literature reveals differences in the theoretical approaches in the East and West. Kisker, who was a representative of the West German social psychiatric movement, had a phenomenological-anthropological background. By contrast, Weise and Thom even though following the same subject orientation, established a socialist social psychiatry clearly integrating Marxist views into their concept. This contrastive also elaborates common viewpoints in understanding the social dimensions of mental health conditions in the two concepts., Competing Interests: Die Autorinnen/Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht., (Thieme. All rights reserved.)