Mad, Bad, and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors

By Lisa Appignanesi

Book Overview

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."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393335437
• ISBN13: 9780393335439
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Countryman Press
• Length: 554 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.3" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Absolute aanrader

Al na het lezen van de inleiding wist ik het: dit is een topboek. Zorgvuldig, grondig, uitgebalanceerd en prikkelend om te lezen en vooral om over na te denken. En ik hou van nadenken.

A Great Introduction to the Subject

The author demonstrates how, from its origins in English asylums run by "carers" to the world's first modern psychiatric facility in revoutionary France, the image of women and of mental illness ("madness") mutually informed each other. These images changed across the decades, and with them, both the prospects and limitations on women, and the understanding of emotional suffering that gave rise to varied diagnoses. Though studded with Britishisms, this is a highly readable introduction to the subject of mental illness and especially the role of the "mind doctors" in both helping and hindering half the world's prospects for a sane and free life.

Enlightenment

This book heralds a new and renewed enlightenment about women, the mind, literature, and history. Recently I purchased the American edition and can not speak highly enough for it. The writing is superb and the text opens so many windows and doors. It is not easy to put down as it sails forward. I highly recommend it to everyone and that must be a wide audience of public and scholar alike. The book is a treasure.