Discovering the History of Psychiatry [Paperback]

Mark S. Micale (Editor), Roy Porter (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0195077393 | ISBN-13: 978-0195077391 | Edition: 1

Psychiatry and psychology, including psychoanalysis, have exercised enormous cultural and scientific influence in our century, and an important part of the growth of these fields has been their attempt to construct accounts of their own disciplinary pasts. Yet these accounts, which form the collective memory of the psychiatric profession, have varied greatly. In fact, the history of psychiatry has emerged as one of the most rapidly-growing and controversy-ridden areas of commentary in recent years. This book brings together twenty studies by a cast of eminent authors--physicians, social scientists, and humanists from Europe and North America--who explore the many complex interpretive and ideological dimensions of history writing about the psychological sciences. It includes chapters on the history of the asylum, Freud biography, anti-psychiatry in the United States and abroad, feminist interpretations of psychiatry's past, and historical accounts of Nazism and psychotherapy, as well as discussions of many individual historical figures and movements. This book represents the first attempt to study comprehensively the multiple mythologies that have grown up around the history of madness and the origin, functions, and validity of these myths in our psychological century.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book is so full of information, tightly written, that a first glance does not reveal how quickly it reads....Highly interesting and a pleasure to read."--Doody's Health Sciences Book Reviews

"Instructive, thought-provoking, easy to read, and consistently engrossing."--Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

"Anyone even remotely interested in the broad range of topics covered in this book should find it a genuine feast....Porter and Micale...have done a superb job of helping to move this whole field in a positive direction."--Psychoanalytic Books

"Mark Micale and Roy Porter have performed a great service by commissioning and publishing twenty review essays in the historiography of psychiatry and mental illness....This volume is recommended for clinicians in any mental health specialty who want to develop an informed, historical perspective.--Contemporary Psychology

"Indeed fills a gap in the rapidly growing literature on the history of psychiatry and mental health...[Offers] much inspiration and many valuable suggestions for further work."--Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences

"Now professional historians are studying the history of psychiatry and writing about its histories. The book shows that we can learn much from their labors."--American Journal of Psychiatry

About the Author

Mark S. Micale is at Yale University. Roy Porter is at Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (January 15, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195077393
• ISBN-13: 978-0195077391
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,141,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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