Social Order/Mental Disorder

Anglo-American Psychiatry in Historical Perspective

Nonfiction, Health & Well Being, Psychology, History, Mental Health
Cover of the book Social Order/Mental Disorder by Andrew Scull, Taylor and Francis
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Andrew Scull ISBN: 9780429850363
Publisher: Taylor and Francis Publication: September 24, 2018
Imprint: Routledge Language: English
Author: Andrew Scull
ISBN: 9780429850363
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Publication: September 24, 2018
Imprint: Routledge
Language: English

Social Order/Mental Disorder represents a provocative and exciting exploration of social response to madness in England and the United States from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. Scull, who is well-known for his previous work in this area, examines a range of issues, including the changing social meanings of madness, the emergence and consolidation of the psychiatric profession, the often troubled relationship between psychiatry and the law, the linkages between sex and madness, and the constitution, character, and collapse of the asylum as our standard response to the problems posed by mental disorder.

This book is emphatically not part of the venerable tradition of hagiography that has celebrated psychiatric history as a long struggle in which the steady application of rational-scientific principles has produced irregular but unmistakable evidence of progress toward humane treatments for the mentally ill. In fact, Scull contends that traditional mental hospitals, for much of their existence, resembled cemeteries for the still breathing, medical hubris having at times served to license dangerous, mutilating, even life-threatening experiments on the dead souls confined therein. He argues that only the sociologically blind would deny that psychiatrists are deeply involved in the definition and identification of what constitutes madness in our world – hence, claims that mental illness is a purely naturalistic category, somehow devoid of contamination by the social, are taken to be patently absurd. Scull points out, however, that the commitment to examine psychiatry and its ministrations with a critical eye by no means entails the romantic idea that the problems it deals with are purely the invention of the professional mind, or the Manichean notion that all psychiatric interventions are malevolent and ill-conceived. It is the task of unromantic criticism that is attempted in this book.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Social Order/Mental Disorder represents a provocative and exciting exploration of social response to madness in England and the United States from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. Scull, who is well-known for his previous work in this area, examines a range of issues, including the changing social meanings of madness, the emergence and consolidation of the psychiatric profession, the often troubled relationship between psychiatry and the law, the linkages between sex and madness, and the constitution, character, and collapse of the asylum as our standard response to the problems posed by mental disorder.

This book is emphatically not part of the venerable tradition of hagiography that has celebrated psychiatric history as a long struggle in which the steady application of rational-scientific principles has produced irregular but unmistakable evidence of progress toward humane treatments for the mentally ill. In fact, Scull contends that traditional mental hospitals, for much of their existence, resembled cemeteries for the still breathing, medical hubris having at times served to license dangerous, mutilating, even life-threatening experiments on the dead souls confined therein. He argues that only the sociologically blind would deny that psychiatrists are deeply involved in the definition and identification of what constitutes madness in our world – hence, claims that mental illness is a purely naturalistic category, somehow devoid of contamination by the social, are taken to be patently absurd. Scull points out, however, that the commitment to examine psychiatry and its ministrations with a critical eye by no means entails the romantic idea that the problems it deals with are purely the invention of the professional mind, or the Manichean notion that all psychiatric interventions are malevolent and ill-conceived. It is the task of unromantic criticism that is attempted in this book.

More books from Taylor and Francis

Cover of the book Critical Literacy and Urban Youth by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book Public Finance and Post-Communist Party Development by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book Russian Borderlands in Change by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book A Magazine of Her Own? by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book Global Africans by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book Content and Process Specificity in the Effects of Prior Experiences by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book Cultural Expertise and Litigation by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book Investigating Classroom Discourse by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book New Essays in the Philosophy of Education (International Library of the Philosophy of Education Volume 13) by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book Ain't No Makin' It by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book Affect, Conditioning, and Cognition (PLE: Emotion) by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book The Routledge Concise History of Southeast Asian Writing in English by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book The Making of Modern Finance by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book Compassionate Cities by Andrew Scull
Cover of the book The Ashgate Research Companion to Religion and Conflict Resolution by Andrew Scull
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy