This fascinating history of mind doctors and their patients probes the ways in which madness, badness, and sadness have been understood over the last two centuries. Lisa Appignanesi charts a story from the days when the mad were considered possessed to our own century when the official psychiatric manual lists some 350 mental disorders. Women play a key role here, both as patients-among them Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and Marilyn Monroe-and as therapists. Controversially, Appignanesi argues that women have significantly changed the nature of mind-doctoring, but in the process they have also inadvertently highlighted new patterns of illness.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
Ambitious . . . brilliant . . . a powerhouse of a book.--Daphne Merkin
Sophisticated, vigorously written, full of striking subtexts . . .an entertaining and well-researched book that avoids easy answers.--Andrew Scull
Fascinating. . . . A meticulous and exhaustive account.--Kathryn Harrison
About the Author:
Lisa Appignanesi, is the author of Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors and All About Love: Anatomy of an Unruly Emotion. A prize-winning novelist and writer, she is the president of English PEN. She lives in London.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherMcArthur & Co Pub Ltd
- Publication date2008
- ISBN 10 155278746X
- ISBN 13 9781552787465
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages532
-
Rating