A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac

"I thought this book was excellent. I'm an undergraduate sociologist, who has had to suffer the rabidly feminist, ridiculously prejudiced anti-medical views of many sociological authors. At last 've found a book that's well written, well argued and convincing. It was refreshing to read an account that didn't dismiss the whole of medicine (and psychiatry in particular) as an attempt by the male dominated hierarchy that represents the medical establishment to repress either women or the lower social classes.

What was good about this book was it's arguments. Shorter explains both sides (i.e. biological and psychological) to psychiatry, but then rather than doodling around and saying how he agrees with the biololgical version, but there is something to the anti-psychiatry movement, he comes down emphatically on the side he belives in. There's none of that "it's somebody's opinion, and that can't be wrong" rubbish.

He doesn't shirk from pointing out the historical shortcomings of the medical profession however - Henry Cotton from Trenton who used to remove psychotic patients teeth and large bowel, Adolf Meyer who lept upon each passing bandwagon, and Freud all come up for inspection, before being soundly dismissed with the benefit of hindsight.

One complaint - he uses the word "suicided" for people who commit suicide. I find this verbification is abhorrent (excuse the pun).

The humour (particularly directed towards Meyer) helps lighten the book, which very occasionally feels a little stodgy as names, places of education and various posts fly past rather rapidly. However, that will always happen to some extent in a book summarising the history of psychiatry in such a short space.

Buy it, and urge any sociologists you know to buy it too. At last a book that has some proper perspective."
~ Written on 2003-09-14

"This book is a one-sided polemic. The author clearly believes that only the "biological" approach to psychiatry is worth anything, but instead of presenting his case as an honest argument, he gives us a weighted, colored, and biased view of history. I was very disappointed."
~ Written on 1999-05-24

"Highly intelligent, principled writing. Not opinionated, but has opinions, argues for them, convinces the reader. Informative but does not aequalize between imporatent and unimportant. Brilliant style, most amusing."
~ Written on 1998-03-02

"I loved this book. Terrific. Over and over it tied together and made sense of things that had puzzled me.

To get personal: in the fifties, my father spent a small fortune on traditional Freudian psychoanalysis. And it did him a lot of good. For years, I believed Freudian psycyoanalysis was scientific. For one things, it just _had_ to be. No charlatan could go to the effort and expense of getting an MD, then board certification in psychiatry, then undergo psychoanalysis, just in order to con people.

Yet in some way that I didn't quite understand, I became aware than nowadays Freudian psychoanalysis is considered to be a pseudoscience, on about the same level as orgone boxes or homeopathy or Christian science.

How _could_ my parents have fallen for it? How _could_ the medical community?

Well, Shorter explains what happened in a way that makes sense, seems clear, and (to my mind) is really quite sympathetic to the psychoanalytic community and its clients.

Along the way he ties up a lot of loose ends. All through the book I kept saying to myself things like, "Oh, so _that's_ what 'neurasthenia' was" (people in novels written early in the century often had it). "Wow, so that's what the word 'degenerate' is really referring to.""
~ Written on 1997-10-06