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A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac (Paperback)

by Edward Shorter (Author) "Before the end of the eighteenth century, there was no such thing as psychiatry ..." (more)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 448 pages
  • Publisher: Jossey Bass; New edition edition (16 Mar 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0471245313
  • ISBN-13: 978-0471245315
  • Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.4 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 112,111 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #31 in  Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Psychology & Psychiatry > History & Philosophy > History

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Product Description

Product Description

"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.


From the Inside Flap

A History of Psychiatry "Zealot–researchers have seized the history of psychiatry to illustrate how their pet bugaboos—be they capitalism, patriarchy, or psychiatry itself—have 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 medicine’s 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 society’s 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 today’s 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 figures—names such as Esquirol and Pinel, Krafft–Ebing and Kraepelin, Freud and Horney—who 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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Before the end of the eighteenth century, there was no such thing as psychiatry. Read the first page
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13 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Quality - and in less space than bag of potatoes, 14 Sep 2003
I thought this book was excellent. I'm an undergraduate sociologist, who has had to suffer the rabidly feminist, ridiculously prejudiced anti-medical views of many sociological authors. At last 've found a book that's well written, well argued and convincing. It was refreshing to read an account that didn't dismiss the whole of medicine (and psychiatry in particular) as an attempt by the male dominated hierarchy that represents the medical establishment to repress either women or the lower social classes.

What was good about this book was it's arguments. Shorter explains both sides (i.e. biological and psychological) to psychiatry, but then rather than doodling around and saying how he agrees with the biololgical version, but there is something to the anti-psychiatry movement, he comes down emphatically on the side he belives in. There's none of that "it's somebody's opinion, and that can't be wrong" rubbish.

He doesn't shirk from pointing out the historical shortcomings of the medical profession however - Henry Cotton from Trenton who used to remove psychotic patients teeth and large bowel, Adolf Meyer who lept upon each passing bandwagon, and Freud all come up for inspection, before being soundly dismissed with the benefit of hindsight.

One complaint - he uses the word "suicided" for people who commit suicide. I find this verbification is abhorrent (excuse the pun).

The humour (particularly directed towards Meyer) helps lighten the book, which very occasionally feels a little stodgy as names, places of education and various posts fly past rather rapidly. However, that will always happen to some extent in a book summarising the history of psychiatry in such a short space.

Buy it, and urge any sociologists you know to buy it too. At last a book that has some proper perspective.

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6 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Ah, so _that's_ what happened., 6 Oct 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac (Hardcover)
I loved this book. Terrific. Over and over it tied together and made sense of things that had puzzled me.

To get personal: in the fifties, my father spent a small fortune on traditional Freudian psychoanalysis. And it did him a lot of good. For years, I believed Freudian psycyoanalysis was scientific. For one things, it just _had_ to be. No charlatan could go to the effort and expense of getting an MD, then board certification in psychiatry, then undergo psychoanalysis, just in order to con people.

Yet in some way that I didn't quite understand, I became aware than nowadays Freudian psychoanalysis is considered to be a pseudoscience, on about the same level as orgone boxes or homeopathy or Christian science.

How _could_ my parents have fallen for it? How _could_ the medical community?

Well, Shorter explains what happened in a way that makes sense, seems clear, and (to my mind) is really quite sympathetic to the psychoanalytic community and its clients.

Along the way he ties up a lot of loose ends. All through the book I kept saying to myself things like, "Oh, so _that's_ what 'neurasthenia' was" (people in novels written early in the century often had it). "Wow, so that's what the word 'degenerate' is really referring to."

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6 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars a one-sided polemic, 24 May 1999
By A Customer
This book is a one-sided polemic. The author clearly believes that only the "biological" approach to psychiatry is worth anything, but instead of presenting his case as an honest argument, he gives us a weighted, colored, and biased view of history. I was very disappointed.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and engaging
This book is packed with valuable information that will be of interest to a mental health professional and an interested layman alike. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Dr Liliya Bakiyeva

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent, principled creitical review which informs, guid
Highly intelligent, principled writing. Not opinionated, but has opinions, argues for them, convinces the reader. Read more
Published on 2 Mar 1998

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