Mania: A Short History of Bipolar Disorder (Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease) [Hardcover]

David Healy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 22, 2008 | Series: Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease

This provocative history of bipolar disorder illuminates how perceptions of illness, if not the illnesses themselves, are mutable over time. Beginning with the origins of the concept of mania—and the term maniac—in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, renowned psychiatrist David Healy examines how concepts of mental afflictions evolved as scientific breakthroughs established connections between brain function and mental illness. Healy recounts the changing definitions of mania through the centuries, explores the effects of new terminology and growing public awareness of the disease on culture and society, and examines the rise of psychotropic treatments and pharmacological marketing over the past four decades. Along the way, Healy clears much of the confusion surrounding bipolar disorder even as he raises crucial questions about how, why, and by whom the disease is diagnosed.

Drawing heavily on primary sources and supplemented with interviews and insight gained over Healy’s long career, this lucid and engaging overview of mania sheds new light on one of humankind’s most vexing ailments.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If David Healy's intent is to present a cohesive, thorough, integrated and provocative account of the history of the concept of mania and the evolution of what is currently called bipolar disorder, he is tremendously successful." -- PsycCRITIQUES

"David Healy reminds us that we need to ask ourselves what it means to be ill and what it means to be well." -- Garan Holcombe, California Literary Review

"A learned and polemical volume in the series Biographies of Disease published by the Johns Hopkins University Press." -- Algis Valiunas, New Atlantis

"A powerful political tract. As social history it provides the most detailed available account of the interactions of psychiatry and the world of pharmaceutical manufacturing." -- Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

"Provides a probing and challenging commentary on the state of contemporary psychiatry." -- Allan Beveridge, British Journal of Psychiatry

"A distinct and powerful view of the history of psychiatry that arouses controversy in the best sense of the word. Healy's discussion of the role of drug companies is especially right on the mark." -- Gerald N. Grob, Ph.D., Henry E. Sigerist Professor of the History of Medicine Emeritus at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

"David Healy is indeed an enfant terrible -- and a very brave man. I doubt he is on Eli Lilly's or Pfizer's Christmas card list." -- Times Literary Supplement

"Mania is a work that deserves a wide readership." -- Gerald N. Grob, Ph.D., Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

"Well-written and compelling... I encourage you to read this exceptional book." -- Tom Olson, PhD, Nursing History Review

"The book is a scholarly one [and] Healy's wide knowledge of the facts of the history is impressive." -- Paul Skerritt, Health and History

"[David Healy's] work has enriched our historiographic discourse enormously and social historians of medicine can only greet that as good news." -- Eric J. Engstrom, Social History of Medicine

From the Back Cover

In this provocative history, David Healy explores how perceptions of illness, if not illnesses themselves, are mutable over time. Drawing heavily on primary sources and supplemented with interviews and insight gained over Healy’s long career, this lucid and engaging narrative of bipolar disorder sheds new light on one of humankind’s most vexing ailments.

"David Healy is indeed an enfant terrible—and a very brave man. I doubt he is on Eli Lilly’s or Pfizer’s Christmas card list."— Times Literary Supplement

"How did we come to apply such a serious diagnosis to vaguely depressed or irritable adults, to unruly children, and to nursing home residents? Is it simply that psychiatric science has progressed and now allows us to detect more easily an illness that had previously been ignored or misunderstood? Healy has another, more cynical explanation: the never-ending expansion of the category of bipolar disorder benefits large pharmaceutical companies eager to sell medications marketed with the disorder in mind." —London Review of Books

"A powerful political tract. As social history it provides the most detailed available account of the interactions of psychiatry and the world of pharmaceutical manufacturing."— Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

"If David Healy's intent is to present a cohesive, thorough, integrated, and provocative account of the history of the concept of mania and the evolution of what is currently called bipolar disorder, he is tremendously successful." —PsycCRITIQUES

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1 edition (May 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801888220
• ISBN-13: 978-0801888229
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,116,705 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Big Pharm and Junk Science October 12, 2009

By David R. Baker

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

David Healy is a professor of psychiatry at Cardiff University; in clear, jargon free prose he writes the history of mental illness, how our concepts and treatments of mental disorders have changed. He believes that history is part of the scientific process because by examining our beliefs and how they have changed we challenge them; he ridicules those like Fukuyama who believe that history has come to an end since the underlying notion of the end of history as well as the public relations departments of the pharmaceutical companies is that our practices are perfect and need never change. As evidence of the contrary, Healy notes, among many examples, such contemporary barbarism as the "treatment" of a 4 year old and a 2 year old with psychotropic drugs that resulted in their deaths.
Transnational corporations did not enter the mental illness market until after WWII. Among other things, WWII brought a paradigm shift in how disease was treated. Drugs such as antibiotics became the focus of all treatments, including mental illness. Chemical companies saw huge profits in drugs and spun off new drug companies which have become the most profitable corporate entities worldwide. As part of this history, much of the early focus on creating new drugs was the exploration of chemical dyes used in the chemical industry and to this day there are many drugs which resulted from that research. In order to maintain their profits, the drug companies aka "Big Pharm" have turned the science of mental health into junk. This is a partial list of how the pharmaceutical companies market their products:
1. They create associations for mental health care professionals and fund their publications;
2. The associations they fund not only serve to promote their products but to create consensus and guidelines to force doctors to use their costly patented products, rather than older generics, or face exposure to lawsuit regardless of whether or not the older products may be at least as effective as the new;
3. Not only do the pharmaceuticals fund existing publications, they help create new ones to promote drugs for new mental disorders;
4. The creation of new disorders is so rapid that a professor of psychiatry at John Hopkins complained that eventually everyone would be designated as mentally ill and looked forward to a mental illness that would include fat, short men of Irish descent, such as himself;
5. In order to ensure a demand for their new drugs, the pharmaceuticals actively promote self help or confessional books by non professionals on the latest mental illness, including publicity hand outs to mainstream outlets such as Time magazine and the New York Times;
6. Not only do the pharmaceuticals fund clinical trials for FDA approval but they suppress clinical trials that do not support licensing of their drugs;
7. Pharmaceuticals ghostwrite publications signed by leading academics for publication in respected medical journals;
8. Pharmaceuticals have dropped using salesmen and women to promote their products and rely upon academics because the academics are cheaper and more effective with doctors;
9. Pharmaceuticals directly market to consumers and entice them to visit their websites and to use rating scales which lead the consumer to believe that he or she has the disorder requiring the use of their expensive, patented drug; and,
10. Pharmaceuticals have no interest in researching drugs that might alleviate major diseases such as AIDS in the poorer parts of the world; instead, they focus on lifestyle drugs such as Viagra for the relatively well to do.
So what is the result of the junk science of mental illness? The astonishing fact is that unique among illnesses in the Western World, the life expectancy for patients with serious mental illness has declined. In some parts of the first world, rates of suicide for the seriously mental ill have increased ten fold.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This information must get to the main public now. November 19, 2009

By Donna J. Mcginn

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book needs to be read and be text in all study of this phenomenom called Bipolar, by all the Doctors, including Psychiatrists,' Psychologists,' Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners,'& Mental Health Counselors, whomever has diagnosed this disorder, and all who may eventually diagnose any pharmaceutical really. The AMA, researchers and developers, academics, and marketers may be suspect, perhaps even our economy.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Alarming but not alarmist. June 25, 2012

By W. Cheung

Format:Paperback

The theme of this book: it asks the question why was it the case that "between 1996 and 2004, there was a fivefold increase in the rate of hospitalization among children for bipolar disorder. Several studies outlined an up-to-fortyfold increase in the rate of outpatient diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children" (page 205).

The way it answers the question is by demonstrating that bipolar disorder is a description that virtually did not exist in classical records (e.g. Hippocrates). To study mental illness adequately, a significant cohort is needed. Industrialization meant that asylums were opened to accommodate the mentally ill, who previously were looked after by their families. This provided opportunities for them to be studied systematically. This occurred towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, rises in the incidence of mental illness seemed to coincide with the availability of psychotropics. This raises the issue of whether products are being made to find a niche or to create a niche. Coupled with the possibility that some randomized controlled trials could be influenced by pharmaceutical companies, this is concerning.

As a practicing medical specialist, I find the message alarming. Written by a prominent professor of psychiatry, it needs to be taken seriously. Saying that, it should be noted that the author does not really discredit the whole medical profession en masse. Rather, it just needs be scrutinized with pinches of salt.