History of Psychiatry

A common misconception about the history of mental illness is that, before Freud and psychoanalysis, there was no such thing as talk therapies or what is commonly known today as psychotherapy.

In a recent college course, Dr Eghigian asked his students to discuss long-term patterns and trends in the history of the handling of mental illness. He was struck by a recurring tendency. Most students portrayed the history of mental health in one of two ways.

Here, in the conclusion to his 1890 discussion about extending psychiatric care to lawbreakers and moral outcasts, A.B. Richardson highlights the importance of both material structures and structured activity in treatment. His statement stands as a pithy summary of the 19th century alienist idea of therapy as a form of “management.”

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.