From Melancholia to Depression
Disordered Mood in Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry
Authors: Jansson, Åsa
Free Preview- Offers much-needed historical perspectives on the emergence of modern depressive illness
- Explores how melancholia was transformed in the nineteenth century from melancholy ‘madness’ to a modern biomedical mood disorder
- Draws on a range of sources, including asylum records, medical textbooks and articles, statistical reports, and directives from the British Lunacy Commission
- This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access
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- About this book
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This open access book maps a crucial but neglected chapter in the history of psychiatry: how was melancholia transformed in the nineteenth century from traditional melancholy madness into a modern biomedical mood disorder, paving the way for the emergence of clinical depression as a psychiatric illness in the twentieth century? At a time when the prevalence of mood disorders and antidepressant consumption are at an all-time high, the need for a comprehensive historical understanding of how modern depressive illness came into being has never been more urgent. This book addresses a significant gap in existing scholarly literature on melancholia, depression, and mood disorders by offering a contextualised and critical perspective on the history of melancholia in the first decades of psychiatry, from the 1830s until the turn of the twentieth century.
- About the authors
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Åsa Jansson is a Junior Research Fellow at the Institute for Medical Humanities at Durham University, UK. She is a historian of psychiatry, with an interdisciplinary background encompassing intellectual history, the history of medicine and political science. She has published in leading journals in her field and beyond, and has communicated her research in other forums, including public exhibitions and festivals.
- Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Introduction: Disordered Mood as Historical Problem
Pages 1-33
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The Scientific Foundation of Disordered Mood
Pages 35-61
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The Classification of Melancholia in Mid-Nineteenth-Century British Medicine
Pages 63-88
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Melancholia and the New Biological Psychiatry
Pages 89-122
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Statistics, Classification, and the Standardisation of Melancholia
Pages 123-171
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- From Melancholia to Depression
- Book Subtitle
- Disordered Mood in Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry
- Authors
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- Åsa Jansson
- Series Title
- Mental Health in Historical Perspective
- Copyright
- 2021
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
- eBook ISBN
- 978-3-030-54802-5
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-030-54802-5
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-3-030-54801-8
- Series ISSN
- 2634-6036
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XV, 234
- Topics
