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

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They are attracted to the high-risk/ high-gain culture of the corporate world and, although they are not team players, and are actually poor leaders, their charm, cunning and recklessness help them climb the corporate ladder.

As many as one in five American children is taking Ritalin and prescriptions in Britain have doubled in five years (Daily Mail, 13/6/11) despite the lack of any satisfactory medical test for ADHD. This essay uses the example of Ott to urge that scholars reckon seriously with the theoretical and practical messiness of human lives and the historical forces in which they live. Because Appignanesi has a complex story to tell there is no blaming at work in this wonderful book, but a shrewd and sympathetic apprehension of what is at stake in the difficult histories of both the Mind Doctors and those they seek to help. It was the second half that made me slow down; perhaps because of the lack of interesting case histories or maybe because the too many references to Freud annoyed me as much as Freud's own ideas which I still can't properly understand. It both affirms common perceptions of the field and surprises; taking mental illness out of hospitals, off couches, and into our everyday lives – from popular malaise to the lithium in 7-Up.Possession, love, sex (too much or too little), religion, abuse, grief, and heredity, to name a few – the causes of women’s madness are myriad. 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. V. (2007) Transforming normality into pathology: The DSM and the outcomes of stressful social arrangements.

The one message that is threaded through the book is the extent to which 'madness' is culturally defined and historicised (as are most other ideas): 'not conforming to a norm risks the label of deviance or madness, and is sometimes attended by confinement' (p. All in all, this was a decent book, at times the book seemed really long (560 pages) and dry and before i knew it, i read about 10 pages and was thinking about something totally off topic.Inspired by Lisa Appignanesi’s acclaimed book, Mad, Bad and Sad also demonstrates how women today conduct their own explorations of mind and imagination in challenging works of art.

Appignaneis isn't merely a Freud fan, she actually makes the claim that, despite scientific data to the contrary, Freudian analysis is the one true way to effect lasting improvement upon the unquiet mind.Philipe Pinel, Jean Etienne Esquirol, Jean Martin Charcot, Alexander Morison, William James, Havelock Ellis, Josef Breuer, Sigmund Freud, Lou Andreas Salome, Sandor Ferenczi, Hanns Sachs, Princess Marie Bonaparte, Anna Freud, Dorothy Burlingham, Melanie Klein, Ruth Beuscher and Marianne Kris.