Healing the Mind: A History of Psychiatry from Antiquity to the Present [Hardcover]

Michael H. Stone (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0393702227 | ISBN-13: 978-0393702224 | Publication Date: January 17, 1997 | Edition: 1

Long before the age of reliable psychodiagnosis (the last 200 years), a primitive vocabulary sprung up to address odd and unconventional people within the body social.

The history of psychiatry concerns efforts to identify, diagnose, and contain or treat these "wild," "mad," or "insane" people. This book starts with the Greeks 2,500 years ago and ends with a detailed look at current developments and trends. 

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

These two books show how far and fast the field of psychiatry has changed in recent times. In Healing the Soul, a comprehensive easy-to-scan survey intended as a student reference, Stone (The Fate of Borderline Patients, Guilford, 1990) chronicles the persons, movements, and events that have contributed to modern psychiatry. Starting with accounts of aberrant behavior in religious texts, he traces the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness from ancient Greece to present times. Culling from sources in philosophy, science, and sociology, he gives increased space to developments since 1900, covering such topics as hospital, forensic, and child psychiatry as well as psychopharmacology, genetics, and psychobiology. Stone not only uncovers obscure writing foreshadowing current trends, but acknowledges contributions from outside North America and includes recent ethnological and cross-cul tural considerations. For most collections. Scull (The Most Solitary of Afflictions: Madness and Society in Britain 1700-1900, Yale Univ., 1993) and his British collaborators focus on the profession of psychiatry in 19th-century Britain. Masters of Bedlam examines the lives and careers of seven "mad-doctors" who, in their writings, research, and political lobbying, were influential in changing the profession from a marginal medical field to a specialty with its own academic training, journals, and professional associations. Though well researched, the format of this work, a series of biographies, assumes a basic background knowledge of historical details. An introductory chapter or appendix (as in Stone's work) outlining pertinent scientific and political developments would give this book wider appeal. For academic libraries and medical history collections.?Lucille Boone, San Jose P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

This is a terrific book for psychiatrists at all stages of their careers as well as other professionals and lay readers interested in the historical antecedents of modern psychiatric practice. (Allan Tasman, M.D. )

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (January 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393702227
• ISBN-13: 978-0393702224
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #308,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael H. Stone, MD (New York, NY) is professor of clinical psychiatry at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is the author of ten books, most recently Personality Disorders: Treatable and Untreatable, and over two hundred professional articles and book chapters. He is also the host of Discovery Channel's former series Most Evil and has been featured in the New York Times, Psychology Today, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the New York Post, the London Times, the BBAC, and Newsday, among many other media outlets.