Customer Reviews

Obsession: A History

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Davis combines interests in English, Human Development, Disability, and Medical Education. A versatile scholar concerned with the practical and the theoretical, he begins with a gripping story of his own boyhood compulsions. Then he shows how society both aggravates and aggrandizes obsessiveness, notably in sex education, science, and psychoanalysis. He uses examples from literature, history, art and medicine: Galton, Dickens, Freud, Marie Stopes and many more. He uses the term "biocultural narrative" to break through the separation between historical context and the latest fads, and between categorical disease and the experience of illness. This is profound, brilliant, and engaging. A retired psychiatrist and historian of psychotherapy, I applaud the author's ability to join medicine and psychology with their historical and social contexts. He writes well, too.

Obsession: A History is a rather unfortunate entry into the conversation about the nature of both obsession in culture and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Put simply, the author is simply not up to the task of separating ideas that should be separate and putting together ideas that should be together. In sum, he is simply not up to the task of taking on this subject.

Yes, we live in an era of obsession. Fine. However, whether or not one pathologizes the symptoms associated with OCD or even call it OCD the reality is that OCD exists independently of whatever we call it, its constellation of symptoms exist and have existed as far back as we have personal histories and modern neuro-biological treatments such as exposure and response prevention therapy, medication and others have proven extremely effective in treating these symptoms (call them whatever you like). It does not exist simply to those who have it and those who treat it. It exists like any other medical disorder.

Would that Foucault were alive today and could take on this topic fully from a cultural perspective. At the same time as the author of Obsession: A History is trying (and failing) to out Foucault Foucault, the author of this text is attempting to achieve a Batesonian like cybernetics approach to the topic but, again, fails.

Either write a book about cultural obsession or write a book about relational awareness and environment in terms of OCD. To attempt to put such complex topics together in such a volume is, frankly, disrespectful to the subject matter and readers who follow the topic closely and, to a greater extent, misleading to those unfamiliar with the topics.

This relatively slim volume will likely not shed any new light for those familiar with the topic of obsession in culture or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

In the end, this book comes off as an unfortunate interruption to an important conversation.