Introductory Remarks to the History of Psychiatry and Mental Illness

This chapter was edited from Professor Pichot’s contribution to the last edition. It presents a history of psychiatry from the perspective of doctors. It is not a historigraphy of mental illness, that is a history of how it has been described or written about by other groups or individuals. Nor is it a history of the people who have suffered with mental illness over the centuries. It describes the evolution of what is sometimes called the medical model of severe mental illness, starting with the founders of humane care, such as Pinel, and moving to the idea of an objective psychopathology, the confounding by psychological explanation, and the continuing conflicts between those favouring biological opposed to social approaches to aetiology and treatment.

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Why Study the History of Psychiatry?

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.3109/00048679309075817 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 27 (4) ◽

pp. 556-559 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Roger T. Mulder

Keyword(s):

Mental Illness ◽

History Of Psychiatry ◽

Psychiatric History ◽

History Of

The history of psychiatry is being neglected. The major psychiatric textbooks no longer offer any overview of psychiatric history. Possible reasons for this indifference are discussed. It is suggested that a knowledge of our history is not only necessary in a general intellectual sense, but also specifically in enabling us to more easily tolerate the incompleteness and ambiguity of many of our concepts. Furthermore, it may help psychiatry to more convincingly explain the reality and consequences of mental illness to a sceptical public.

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Psychiatry and the dark side: eugenics, Nazi and Soviet psychiatry

Advances in Psychiatric Treatment ◽

10.1192/apt.bp.112.010330 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 52-60 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Jason Luty

Keyword(s):

Mental Illness ◽

Mentally Ill ◽

Psychiatric Treatment ◽

History Of Psychiatry ◽

Mental Illnesses ◽

Dark Side ◽

Nazi Regime ◽

The Usa ◽

History Of ◽

Thomas Szasz

SummaryPsychiatrist Thomas Szasz fought coercion (compulsory detention) and denied that mental illness existed. Although he was regarded as a maverick, his ideas are much more plausible when one discovers that between 1939 and 1941, up to 100 000 mentally ill people, including 5000 children, were killed in Nazi Germany. In the course of the Nazi regime, over 400 000 forced sterilisations took place, mainly of people with mental illnesses. Other countries, including Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, had active forced sterilisation programmes and eugenics laws. Similar laws were implemented in the USA, with up to 25 000 forced sterilisations. These atrocities were enabled and facilitated by psychiatrists of the time and are only one example of the dark side of the profession. This article reviews some of these aspects of the history of psychiatry, including Germany's eugenics programme and the former USSR's detention of dissidents under the guise of psychiatric treatment.

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Reading about … the history of psychiatry

The British Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1192/bjp.bp.111.107565 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 200 (5) ◽

pp. 431-433 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Allan Beveridge

Keyword(s):

Mental Illness ◽

18Th Century ◽

History Of Psychiatry ◽

The State ◽

Effective Therapy ◽

Historical Narrative ◽

Rational Approach ◽

The Enlightenment ◽

Late 18Th Century ◽

History Of

In recent decades ideological battles have raged over how the history of psychiatry should be interpreted. Should the emergence of psychiatry in the late 18th century be seen as the triumph of the Enlightenment, ushering in a rational approach to mental illness and overturning the primitive and often barbaric ideas of previous eras? Or should the rise of psychiatry be seen in a more sinister light? Does it represent the extension of the state into the lives of its citizens, controlling and policing the disaffected and discontented? Are psychiatrists benign humanitarians or agents of oppression? Should the historical narrative be one of progress, as psychiatry steadily extends its knowledge of mental illness and develops more and more effective therapy? Or is the reverse true: has the advent of psychiatry been a calamity for the mad?

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Critical psychiatry: an embarrassing hangover from the 1970s?

BJPsych Bulletin ◽

10.1192/bjb.2020.5 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 44 (6) ◽

pp. 233-236 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Duncan B. Double

Keyword(s):

Mental Illness ◽

History Of Psychiatry ◽

Brain Disease ◽

History Of

SummaryCritical psychiatry is associated with anti-psychiatry and may therefore seem to be an embarrassing hangover from the 1970s. However, its essential position that functional mental illness should not be reduced to brain disease overlaps with historical debates in psychiatry more than is commonly appreciated. Three examples of non-reductive approaches, like critical psychiatry, in the history of psychiatry are considered.

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