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Voices in the History of Madness

Personal and Professional Perspectives on Mental Health and Illness

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Editors:
  1. Robert Ellis

    1. School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK

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  2. Sarah Kendal

    1. School of Healthcare, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  3. Steven J. Taylor

    1. School of History, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

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  • Explores a broad range of historical perspectives on mental health and illness.
  • Chapters cover a broad chronological and geographical scope, from the early modern period to the late twentieth century, and across Europe, North America, Asia and Africa.
  • Presents a wide range of opinions and views on mental health from patients, practitioners, families and their communities

Part of the book series: Mental Health in Historical Perspective (MHHP)

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Table of contents (20 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Voices in the History of Madness: An Introduction to Personal and Professional Perspectives

    • Robert Ellis, Sarah Kendal, Steven J. Taylor
    Pages 1-22

  4. Reconstructing Patient Perspectives

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 115-115
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    2. Experiences of the Madhouse in England, 1650–1810

      • Leonard Smith
      Pages 117-136

    3. “Tells his Story Quite Rationally and Collectedly”: Examining the Casebooks of the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum, 1890–1910, for Cases of Delusion Where Patients Voiced their Life Stories

      • Rory du Plessis
      Pages 137-153

    4. Dehumanizing Experience, Rehumanizing Self-Awareness: Perception of Violence in Psychiatric Hospitals of Soviet Lithuania

      • Tomas Vaiseta
      Pages 155-172

    5. “I Like My Job because It Will Get Me Out Quicker”: Work, Independence, and Disability at Indiana’s Central State Hospital (1986–1993)

      • Emily Beckman, Elizabeth Nelson, Modupe Labode
      Pages 173-190

    6. “More than Bricks and Mortar”: Meaningful Care Practices in the Old State Mental Hospitals

      • Verusca Calabria, Di Bailey, Graham Bowpitt
      Pages 191-215

  6. Mad Studies and Activism

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 285-285
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    2. Brutal Sanity and Mad Compassion: Tracing the Voice of Dorothea Buck

      • Elena Demke
      Pages 287-306

    3. Mad Activists and the Left in Ontario, 1970s to 2000

      • Geoffrey Reaume
      Pages 307-332
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Keywords

About this book

This book presents new perspectives on the multiplicity of voices in the histories of mental ill-health. In the thirty years since Roy Porter called on historians to lower their gaze so that they might better understand patient-doctor roles in the past, historians have sought to place the voices of previously silent, marginalised and disenfranchised individuals at the heart of their analyses. Today, the development of service-user groups and patient consultations have become an important feature of the debates and planning related to current approaches to prevention, care and treatment. This edited collection of interdisciplinary chapters offers new and innovative perspectives on mental health and illness in the past and covers a breadth of opinions, views, and interpretations from patients, practitioners, policy makers, family members and wider communities. Its chronology runs from the early modern period to the twenty-first century and includes international and transnational analyses from Europe, North America, Asia and Africa, drawing on a range of sources and methodologies including oral histories, material culture, and the built environment.

Chapter 4 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Reviews

“This edited collection of interdisciplinary chapters offers new and innovative perspectives on mental health and illness in the past and covers a breadth of opinions, views, and interpretations from patients, practitioners, policy makers, family members and wider communities.” (Filippo M. Sposini, H-Madness, historypsychiatry.com, April 21, 2021)

Editors and Affiliations

  • School of Arts and Humanities, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK

    Robert Ellis

  • School of Healthcare, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Sarah Kendal

  • School of History, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Steven J. Taylor

About the editors

Rob Ellis is a Reader in History and the author of London and its Asylums, 1888-1914: Politics and Madness (2020). He has published widely on the histories of mental ill-health and learning disability and has co-produced a range of impact and engagement projects that have emphasized their contemporary relevance.

Sarah Kendal is a Research Fellow  at the University of Leeds, UK. She has a clinical background and has published widely on mental health and illness.  Her interests include current practice and how that can be informed by the past. 

Steven J. Taylor is a Lecturer in the History of Medicine at the University of Kent, UK, and author of Child Insanity in England, 1845-1907, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2017. His research explores ideas and constructions of childhood health, lay and professional diagnoses, ability and disability, and institutional care.


Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Voices in the History of Madness

  • Book Subtitle: Personal and Professional Perspectives on Mental Health and Illness

  • Editors: Robert Ellis, Sarah Kendal, Steven J. Taylor

  • Series Title: Mental Health in Historical Perspective

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69559-0

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-69558-3Published: 13 May 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-69561-3Published: 13 May 2022

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-69559-0Published: 12 May 2021

  • Series ISSN: 2634-6036

  • Series E-ISSN: 2634-6044

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXII, 430

  • Number of Illustrations: 4 b/w illustrations, 16 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Social History, History of Medicine, Oral History, Psychiatry

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