History of Psychiatry

Concerns are raised about DSM-5 revisions in the definition of depression. Many worry that eliminating the bereavement exception in the guidelines for the diagnosis of major depressive disorder represents a dangerous move.

Very important—but generally neglected—aspects of history provide something of a glimpse of what historians of mental health and illness are mulling over these days.

The history of the 19th and early 20th century asylum is a history of locking up patients . . . or so it has seemed. Since the 1950s and 1960s when the history of psychiatry first took off, scholars have generally conceded that asylums were primarily institutions of confinement. New research indicates otherwise.

This book aims to demonstrate how, regrettably, over the last twenty years or so, typically American conceptions of mental illness have been exported successfully to the rest of the world. According to Watters, the often enthusiastic international reception of DSM-III and IV has homogenized human suffering all over the world.

In this blog, Dr Pols reviews The Politics of War Trauma: The Aftermath of World War II in Eleven European Countries, by Jolande Withuis and Annet Mooij (eds).

Psychotic episodes are devastating for the individuals who have them, their friends, and families. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if individuals could receive treatment before the first psychotic episode strikes, so that it could be avoided altogether?

When Leo Alexander, the psychiatrist who served as advisor at the Nuremberg doctors’ trial, helped draft the articles of the Nuremberg code, his attention was drawn to two earlier episodes in German medical history.