This book tells the story of Barbara Robb and her pressure group, Aid for the Elderly in Government Institutions (AEGIS). In 1965, Barbara visited 73-year-old Amy Gibbs in a dilapidated and overcrowded National Health Service psychiatric hospital back-ward. She was so appalled by the low standards that she set out to make improvements. Barbara'...
This open 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 prevalen...
What does it mean to say that someone is autistic?
Towards an Ethics of Autism is an exploration of this question and many more. In this thoughtful, wide-ranging book, Kristien Hens examines a number of perspectives on autism, including psychiatric, biological, and philosophical, to consider different ways of thinking about autism, as well as it...
This book investigates psychiatry in Uganda during the years of decolonisation. It examines the challenges facing a new generation of psychiatrists as they took over responsibility for psychiatry at the end of empire, and explores the ways psychiatric practices were tied to shifting political and development priorities, periods of instability, and ...
From 1928 to 1972, the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act, Canada's lengthiest eugenic policy, shaped social discourses and medical practice in the province. Sterilization programs - particularly involuntary sterilization programs - were responding both nationally and internationally to social anxieties produced by the perceived connection betwe...
This open book explores the history of asylums and their civilian patients during the First World War, focusing on the effects of wartime austerity and deprivation on the provision of care. While a substantial body of literature on ‘shell shock’ exists, this study uncovers the mental wellbeing of civilians during the war. It provides the first ...
This book fall of various self-harming behaviours in twentieth-century Britain. It puts self-cutting and overdosing into historical perspective, linking them to the huge changes that occur in mental and physical healthcare, social work and wider politics....
'This is an excellent and engaging resource on delusions. The idea that delusions should not be seen as radically different from other beliefs… is an important challenge to much contemporary thinking and practice. It should be of interest to anyone studying delusional beliefs, and to all those who aim to help people who are troubled by them....
This open access edited collection contributes a new dimension to the study of mental health and psychiatry in the twentieth century. It takes the present literature beyond the 'asylum and after' paradigm to explore the multitude of spaces that have been permeated by concerns about mental well-being and illness. The chapters in this volum...
This book investigates the pathologisation of homosexuality during the fascist regime in Italy through an analysis of the case of G., a man with "homosexual tendencies" interned in the Collegno mental health hospital in 1928. No systematic study exists on the possibility that Fascism used internment in an asylum as a tool of repression fo...
This book explores the under-researched history of male mental illness from the mid-twentieth century. It argues that statistics suggesting women have been more vulnerable to depression and anxiety are misleading since they underplay a host of alternative presentations of 'distress' more common in men....
This landmark text describes research-informed practices and applications of Medical Family Therapy (MedFT) across an array of care environments and clinical populations. It is a timely release for a rapidly growing field and ably contextualizes MedFT within a myriad of areas, including family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, alcoho...
This comprehensive book examines the organization, financing, delivery, and outcomes of behavioral health (i.e., alcohol, drug abuse, and mental health) services from both U.S. and global perspectives. Addressing the need for more integrative and collaborative approaches in public health and behavioral health initiatives, the book covers the fundam...
This open book offers essential information on values-based practice (VBP): the clinical skills involved, teamwork and person-centered care, links between values and evidence, and the importance of partnerships in shared decision-making. Different cultures have different values; for example, partnership in decision-making looks very different, from...
This open volume is the first academic book on the controversial issue of including spiritual care in integrated electronic medical records (EMR). Based on an international study group comprising researchers from Europe (The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland), the United States, Canada, and Australia, this edited collection provides an overview ...