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

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The theory of menstrual madness held a tight grip on the understanding of even the most prominent of nineteenth-century physicians. Many statements lack any footnote where there should be one, and considering her demonstrated problem with facts, means viewing most of what is written with some skepticism as to it's reliability, without being able to reference where the information came from. Anyhow, it is the case studies that are definitely engaging and that make for a riveting read - from famous stories like those of Virginia Woolf, Zelda Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath and Marilyn Monroe (thus reviving the ever so popular link between madness and creativity/talent/beauty) to less notorious cases that nevertheless helped their doctors to new discoveries.

The use of famous women’s lives and writings, such as Zelda Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, and Marilyn Monroe work as case studies of both depth and breadth. It could perhaps have been reduced by about 25% in length without any loss of interest - indeed it would have benefited from a litlle pruning. One commonality is perhaps that what is considered mental illness consists largely of unexplained physical symptoms. Appignanesi offers a detailed and critical review of the last two centuries of "mind-doctoring", from alienism to physiognomy to psychoanalysis to psychiatry.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. Yet I can't help feeling that this adds further complexity to already fraught popular perceptions of mental illness. g., motorists who have fallen asleep at the wheel) while giving bail to others from whom the public deserves protection (e. Te fragmenty są może nieco mniej literackie, ale za to informacje są tu podane w dużo bardziej skondensowanej formie.

I found Appignanesi's writing style readable and impressively measured, while the content was extremely thought-provoking. Part of the problem is that Appignanesi is trying very hard to shoe-horn in many related but separate issues into a single linear history: the development of psychiatry; the changing constructions and representations of gender, especially femininity; and mini biographies of all kinds of people from women labelled as 'mad, bad or sad' (e. This one might not be false so much as misleading: She states that Clerambault "staged his own murder", which I found such a fascinating tidbit that I went looking for more information about how he tried to make his suicide look like a murder, and if he was trying to frame a particular person. In the medical world, this is already done with things like blood pressure, cholesterol and obesity – we accept that people vary continuously and there comes a point where treatment is indicated.

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. Ableism profoundly and variously shaped her life and the lives of others institutionalized alongside her, but it is only a part of a complicated tangle of marital violence, patriarchy, disreputable womanhood, and money and the state-building efforts of settler colonialism of Wisconsin in the last half of the nineteenth century. 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. I put off reading the book after being lent it on the justified expectation that it would be upsetting in parts, however it was entirely worth persisting with and more accessible than I anticipated. I was fascinated to learn about the pioneering female psychotherapists and changing views of what symptoms could be alleviated by psychoanalysis.

People and their illnesses don't fit neatly into boxes, but without some stratification and classification, we put everyone in one giant box, understanding and helping no one. There are many things wrong with this book, but my biggest criticism is that I can't trust what the author wrote. 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. 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.

Sigmund Freud’s famous question was originally put to Princess Marie Bonaparte, patient, friend and analyst, the moving force behind Freud’s flight from Nazi Vienna to his final home in London, now the Freud Museum.

This paper will reveal how cultural beliefs and superstitions associated with the female body, as communicated by the medical profession, had a profound impact on the image of the mad or violent women in nineteenth-century texts. I intend to reveal a link between medical understanding of menstruation and the representation of women as unstable in literature. She spends more time discussing the doctors and their backgrounds than actually discussing the women. This is a book with a broad scope and a bold aim: to look at the history of the study of the female mind over the past two centuries. It is an educational and thoroughly entertaining mix of history and case studies, with added emphasis on the impact of psychology, and psychiatry, and their practices on wider society.Likewise, who can say they are safe from the factors he considers predictive of mental alienation: irregularities in the environment; sudden, oppressive or excessive passions; a melancholic constitution? Several latter chapters consider how the hippy and feminist movements critiqued psychology, the legacy of which I've noticed anecdotally in my family . The answer can be found when seeing the glamourisation of drug-taking and 'mad' women in the media (especially celebrities), the way the same media treats female criminals (whether they're mad or bad) as 'foxy' and 'vamp', and the way terms like 'mad' and 'hysterical' are still easily flung at women who may just be vocal about their rights. ABSTRACT This important essay looks at white female mental health in the British Raj in the second half of the nineteenth century.