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

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For those who are truly suffering from depression, bi polar, schizophrenia, anorexia etc I am thankful that treatments seem to have improved over the years and hope that they continue to improve to help them. I really enjoyed the historical examples of the treatment of women with mental health problems, and the clear way Appignanesi breaks down theories and treatments.

It seems to me we are confused about what prison is for – punishment, retribution, deterrent, rehabilitation, or just protection of the public. 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. Appignanesi chronicles the history of mental illness and women from the time when mental illness first became thought of as something that actually could be treated. Ostatnie dwa rozdziały to jakiś dziwny rant autorki, akapity posklejane niczym praca zaliczeniowa na studiach. Her own view is eventually revealed - mental illness and depression are far more likely to be caused by poverty than by gender: 'The greatest percentage of both men and women who consult doctors, old age apart, are those who have no regular work or those engaged in manual labour.Ultimately, Appignanesi is not against whatever help people may need but there's a slightly cynical soap-box feel to the last chapters that didn't sit well with me. Several latter chapters consider how the hippy and feminist movements critiqued psychology, the legacy of which I've noticed anecdotally in my family . Bardzo ważna dla każdej osoby, która pracuje lub chciałaby pracować z osobami w kryzysie psychicznym.

What is clear is that as we have moved through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, an ever wider set of behaviours and emotions have become 'symptomatic' and fallen under the aegis of the mind doctors. But as a perceived objective reporter, she has no business throwing in opinions at the end of paragraphs of history and assumed fact. However, their lack of concern for the feelings of others may be secondary to their impulsiveness – the need to pursue gratification due to a hyper-reactive dopamine reward system in the brain (Buckholtz et al, 2010).The author intersperses the history of the treatment of mental illness with biographies of both famous patients and therapists, along with some chapters that focus ‘trends’ in mental illness. If the punitive aspect is removed from secure facilities, then the distinction between health and penal institutions becomes academic and they can be equally humane.