Psychiatry and Its Discontents

By Andrew Scull

Book Overview

Written by one of the world's distinguished historians of psychiatry, Psychiatry and Its Discontents provides a wide-ranging and critical perspective on one hundred years of psychiatry. Scull traces the rise of the field, the midcentury hegemony of psychoanalytic methods, and the paradigm's decline along with the ascendance and hegemony of biological and pharmaceutical approaches to mental illness. The book's historical sweep is broad, ranging from the age of the asylum to the rise of psychopharmacology and the dubious triumphs of "community care." Collectively, the essays in Psychiatry and Its Discontents provide a vivid and compelling portrait of the recurring crises of legitimacy that "mad-doctors," as they were once called, have endured, and illustrates the impact of psychiatry's ideas and interventions on the lives of those afflicted with mental illness.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520305493
• ISBN13: 9780520305496
• Release Date: July 2019
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 376 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.1"