Great book on the history of mental illness

Even before the (noticeable) development of my BP symptoms, I’ve always had an interest in anything related to the mind.  One of my many career interests growing up was to become a criminal profiler (very much inspired by The Silence of the Lambs, and the show Profiler).  Anyhoo, I was lucky enough to take a few classes in the history and philosophy of science in undergrad and have maintained an interest in the subject ever since. 

Anyhow, I went to my local library for the first time since moving to the Bay area in October of 2006 and was so happy to get a library card for the first time in years (I think I was going through a very mini-hypomanic episode and chose to expend my energy on being all excited about the library and borrowing lots of books rather than spending my non-existent money).  While browsing through the aisles looking for self-help books on bipolar disorder, I cam across this tiny book called Madness- A Brief History by Roy Porter.  According to the slipcover, the author was a professor of the social history of medicine before his retirement. 

The book is a very short review of how different societies (mainly Western) viewed and treated what e call today “mental illness.”  The book is quite a bit shorter than I would like but provides a good introduction to the topic.  Another great book, that I read quite a while back while an undergraduate student was Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization.  I’d recommend that one as well.

~ by antipretzel on April 17, 2008.