"PPPP . . . To compress 200 years of psychiatric theory and practice into a compelling and coherent narrative is a fine achievement . . . . What strikes the reader [most] are Shorter's storytelling skills, his ability to conjure up the personalities of the psychiatrists who shaped the discipline and the conditions under which they and their patients lived."—Ray Monk The Mail on Sunday magazine, U.K.
"An opinionated, anecdote-rich history. . . . While psychiatrists may quibble, and Freudians and other psychoanalysts will surely squawk, those without a vested interest will be thoroughly entertained and certainly enlightened."—Kirkus Reviews.
"Shorter tells his story with immense panache, narrative clarity, and genuinely deep erudition."—Roy Porter Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine.
In A History of Psychiatry, Edward Shorter shows us the harsh, farcical, and inspiring realities of society's changing attitudes toward and attempts to deal with its mentally ill and the efforts of generations of scientists and physicians to ease their suffering. He paints vivid portraits of psychiatry's leading historical figures and pulls no punches in assessing their roles in advancing or sidetracking our understanding of the origins of mental illness.
Shorter also identifies the scientific and cultural factors that shaped the development of psychiatry. He reveals the forces behind the unparalleled sophistication of psychiatry in Germany during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as well as the emergence of the United States as the world capital of psychoanalysis.
This engagingly written, thoroughly researched, and fiercely partisan account is compelling reading for anyone with a personal, intellectual, or professional interest in psychiatry.
Author(s): Edward Shorter
Publisher: Wiley
Year: 1998
Language: English
Pages: 577
Other Books by Edward Shorter......Page 5
Title Page......Page 6
Copyright Page......Page 8
Dedication......Page 9
Preface......Page 10
A World without Psychiatry......Page 14
Traditional Asylums......Page 17
Heralding the Therapeutic Asylum......Page 21
Organizing the Therapeutic Asylum......Page 32
Nervous Illness and Nonpsychiatrists......Page 37
Toward a Biological Psychiatry......Page 42
Romantic Psychiatry......Page 45
CHAPTER 2 - The Asylum Era......Page 49
National Traditions......Page 50
The Pressure of Numbers......Page 62
Why the Increase?......Page 64
Redistribution of Illness......Page 66
Rising Rate of Psychiatric Illness......Page 70
Dead End......Page 83
Enter Ideas......Page 88
A German Century......Page 90
French Disasters......Page 102
Anglo-Saxon Laggards......Page 108
Degeneration......Page 115
The End of the First Biological Psychiatry......Page 121
An American Postscript......Page 134
CHAPTER 4 - Nerves......Page 138
Nerves Better than Madness......Page 139
The Flight of Madness into the Spa......Page 144
Tired Nerves and the Rest Cure......Page 155
Neurology Discovers Psychotherapy......Page 163
CHAPTER 5 - The Psychoanalytic Hiatus......Page 173
Freud and His Circle......Page 174
The Battle Begins......Page 183
American Origins......Page 189
The Arrival of the Europeans......Page 196
Triumph......Page 200
Psychoanalysis and the American Jews......Page 212
CHAPTER 6 - Alternatives......Page 221
Fever Cure and Neurosyphilis......Page 223
Early Drugs......Page 228
Prolonged Sleep......Page 233
Shock and Coma......Page 242
Electroshock......Page 255
The Lobotomy Adventure......Page 262
Social and Community Psychiatry......Page 267
CHAPTER 7 - The Second Biological Psychiatry......Page 278
The Genetic Strand......Page 279
The First Drug That Worked......Page 285
The Cornucopia......Page 296
Neuroscience......Page 303
Antipsychiatry......Page 315
Return to “the Community”......Page 321
The Battle over ECT......Page 325
CHAPTER 8 - From Freud to Prozac......Page 333
Maintaining Market Share......Page 334
A Nation Hungers for Psychotherapy......Page 338
Science versus Fashion in Diagnosis......Page 341
The Decline of Psychoanalysis......Page 351
Cosmetic Psychopharmacology......Page 360
Why Psychiatry?......Page 374
Notes......Page 377
Index......Page 506
