Mad, Bad And Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 to the Present

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Brandon showed an extraordinary understanding of her own condition and of her sexuality; she was one of the first British patients whose case notes diagnosed her as having 'Freudian' problems.

Ott, a physician with a nearly twenty-year practice, to the Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane. This book uncovers the history of psychiatry through the personal lives, studies and achievements of the principal mind doctors whose main focus was to understand and treat women and who left a mark in this medical area.

But we cannot treat every religious person with anti-psychotic medication and if their religion provides identity and comfort then who is to say it is not good for them? I also felt uncomfortable with some aspects of Appignanesi's conclusions (where modern medication and therapies do more to create patients than help them, and in fact women would do better if they were untreated), but can accept that perhaps I'm having difficulty processing this idea objectively.

William Rowley, professor of medicine at Oxford University and member of the Royal College of Physicians, eagerly wrote of the 'passio hysterica' repressed menstruation, or amenorrhea, could bring about in women in 1800: 'The tongue falters, trembles, and incoherent things are spoken; the voice changes; some roar, scream or shriek immoderately; others sigh deeply, weep or moan plaintively'. On the whole I'm glad I read it, but would only recommend it if you have a strongUsing figures the reader has heard of roots the psychological technicalities and analysis in real life, and as we empathise with and relate to celebrities, this makes the subject matter easier to digest and understand. Brandon was brought up by a brutal aunt who subjected her to beatings from the age of three: these began to form the basis for her childhood fantasies. It’s a bit simplistic, but I still think it’s quite a good way of starting to think about what sorts of emotions we all have.

This chapter traces a brief history of how women’s mental health has been pathologized in the American and European West, and accounts for feminist interpretations of these various pathologizations. I would have liked to hear Appignanesi talk about what the women in her case studies actually did and said and might have felt; whether the actual or perceived dysfunctions had any basis or commonality despite the fashions in treatment; about what in life might have brought them to their symptoms or treatments. In fact, the behaviours for which Ritalin is prescribed sound typical of naughty, inattentive boys, especially those on fast-food diets, who lack exercise and who stay up late to watch TV or play video games. Unfortunately, we crowd our prisons with people who have offended but are not criminal personalities (e.From Freud and Jung and the radical breakthroughs of psychoanalysis to Lacan’s construction of a modern movement and the new women-centred therapies. That is not her step brother, that is her half brother, and when discussing molestation it is the difference between violation by a non-blood relative and incest, which makes it an important distinction.

However, therapy must be in the best interests of the client – not others who might want them restrained. Napisana zgrabnie (to może też być efekt dobrego tłumaczenia) lekkim językiem bez naukowego zadęcia - może dlatego, że autorka sam przyznaje się we wstępie, że wcześniej zajmowała się literaturą piękną. Women play a key role here, both as patients - among them Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and Marilyn Monroe - and as therapists.

But as a perceived objective reporter, she has no business throwing in opinions at the end of paragraphs of history and assumed fact. ABSTRACT This important essay looks at white female mental health in the British Raj in the second half of the nineteenth century. While I second her preoccupation about the excess categorisation of mental conditions with its possibility of misdiagnosing and risk in self-diagnosing, I found her a little exaggerated when it comes to the condemnation of pill-prescriptions, even though her conclusion was then a bit neutral. This book, or at least a version of it, should be read by all young people, particularly young women, and all those people who believe they are suffering from some of the modern ills that obsess them so that they can see that they may in fact be being manipulated by a media obsessed with image and big pharma that claims to have all the answers in a handy capsule.