A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac - Hardcover

Shorter, Edward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 047115749X ISBN 13: 9780471157496

Publisher: Jossey Bass, 1997

Synopsis

There is growing public interest in the uses and abuses of medicine in general and psychiatry in particular, and intense debate about whether mental illness is social or organic in origin. In this comprehensive history of psychiatry, historian Edward Shorter examines the evolution of psychiatric theory and practice from the 18th century to the present. It covers the latest developments in the field, it proposes a return to "biological" roots and treatments of mental illness as opposed to the theory of mental illness being of social origin. It further describes the shift away from Freudian-based analysis towards a new era of possibilities of diagnosis and treatment using medication such as Prozac to treat a variety of disorders.

About this title

About the Author

EDWARD SHORTER is Hannah Professor in the History of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is the author of more than ten books, including the widely acclaimed The Making of the Modern Family.

From the Back Cover

A History of Psychiatry "Zealot-researchers have seized the history of psychiatry to illustrate how their pet bugaboosbe they capitalism, patriarchy, or psychiatry itselfhave converted protest into illness, locking into asylums those who otherwise would be challenging the established order. Although these trendy notions have attained great currency among intellectuals, they are incorrect in that they do not correspond to what happened in history." Edward Shorter With these words, celebrated historian Edward Shorter fires the opening salvo of his provocative retelling of the history of psychiatry. Writing not as an apologist, but as a clear-sighted and exacting scholar, he traces the evolution of one of medicines most volatile disciplines, from its wild and woolly beginning amidst the din of eighteenth-century madhouses, through its more decorous twentieth-century incarnation among the soft lights of Park Avenue consulting offices, to what Shorter considers its present triumph as a bona fide medical specialty. With cinematic scope and precision, Shorter shows us the harsh, farcical, and inspiring realities of societys changing attitudes toward its mentally ill and the efforts of generations of scientists and physicians to ease their suffering. He takes us inside the eighteenth-century asylums, with their restraints and beatings, and guides us through the landscaped boulevards of the spas and rest homes where the "nervous disorders" of the Victorian elite were treated with bromides, buttermilk, and kind words. He leads us through the teeming "snake pits" of early twentieth-century public mental hospitals and the gleaming laboratories of todays pharmaceutical cartels. Writing in the tradition of the best social history, Shorter delineates the major scientific and cultural forces that shaped the development of psychiatry. Along the way, he paints vivid portraits of the leading figuresnames such as Esquirol and Pinel, Krafft-Ebing and Kraepelin, Freud and Horneywho peopled the history of psychiatry. He pulls no punches in assessing the roles these men and women played in advancing our understanding of the biological origins of mental illness, or sidetracking psychiatry into pseudoscience, metaphysics, and fanaticism. An enthralling account of psychiatry from the era of the asylum to the age of Prozac, A History of Psychiatry is must reading for all behavioral scientists and for anyone interested in the history of a fascinating and influential medical specialty.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey Bass
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 047115749X
• ISBN 13: 9780471157496
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448