asylum – A New Vision for Mental Health

How did mental health become so biomedical? The progressive erosion of social determinants in historical psychiatric admission registers

Author: Editorial 24th July 2023 0 Comments

This paper – available via Research Gate in the ‘History of Psychiatry’ category – is co-authored by Fritz Handerer, Peter Kinderman, Carsten Timmermann, and Sara J Tai. The abstract says: “This paper explores the historical developments of admission registers of psychiatric…
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a coherent system

asylum, biomedical model, Carsten Timmermann, Fritz Handerer, history of psychiatry, Peter Kinderman, psychiatry, psychosocial factors, Research, Research Gate, Sara J Tai, social determinants

Your Consent Is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment, and Abusive Guardianships

Author: Editorial 8th February 2023 0 Comments

This book comes from Rob Wipond. The publishers say: “Asylums are supposed to be in the past. However, though the buildings were closed, many of the practices lived on. In fact, more law-abiding Americans today are being involuntarily committed and forcibly…
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collaborative practice

asylum, books, Canada, coercive psychiatry, forced treatment, psychiatry, Rob Wipond, USA

Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine

Author: Editorial 13th July 2022 0 Comments

This book comes from Prof. Andrew Scull. The publisher says: “Madhouse reveals a long-suppressed medical scandal, shocking in its brutality and sobering in its implications. It shows how a leading American psychiatrist of the early twentieth century came to believe that mental…
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a coherent system

Andrew Scull, asylum, books, Henry Cotton, history of psychiatry, psychiatry, psychosis, Trenton State Hospital

Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry and the Mysteries of Mental Illness

Author: Editorial 27th April 2022 0 Comments

This book has been written by Andrew Scull. The publishers say: “For more than two hundred years, disturbances of reason, cognition and emotion – the sort of things that were once called ‘madness’ – have been described and treated by the…
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a coherent system

Andrew Scull, asylum, books, history of psychiatry, insanity, psychiatry

This Is What a Psychiatric Ward Designed by Patients Looks Like

Author: Editorial 14th May 2021 0 Comments

Kristin Hohenadel reports for Slate Magazine: “What would a psychiatric ward look like if patients designed it ? That is the question behind “ Madlove: A Designer Asylum ” from British artist and activist James Leadbitter (aka “ the vacuum cleaner ”). Leadbitter—whose work has been exhibited at venues including the Tate Modern and…
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collaborative practice

asylum, asylum design, Benjamin Koslowski, James Christian, James Leadbitter, Kristin Hohenadel, Madlove: A Designer Asylum, New Approaches, Slate Magazine, The Vacuum Cleaner

The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic

Author: Editorial 22nd June 2020 0 Comments

“The Lives They Left Behind reveals the vast historical inadequacies of a psychiatric system that has yet to heal itself.” This book has been co-authored by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny, with photographs by Liza Rinzler. The publishers say: “When Willard…
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collaborative practice

asylum, books, Darby Penney, Peter Stastny, psychiatry

How hospitable are hospitals?

Author: Editorial 11th April 2019 4 Comments

The word hospital is related to hospitable, hostel and hotel. Earlier it meant “shelter for the needy”. It comes from the Latin hospes, signifying a stranger or foreigner, hence a guest. Another noun derived from this, hospitium, came to signify…
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collaborative practice

asylum, asylum design, hospital, hospital design, Madlove, New Approaches

Mental Illness as Brain Disease: A Brief History Lesson

Author: Editorial 8th April 2019 0 Comments

This article , written by psychiatrist Thomas Szasz in 2006, is well worth reading in terms of the historical perspective that it provides, though some of his conclusions are starkly expressed in controversial terms. It begins: “A 1999 White House Conference…
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collaborative practice

asylum, history of psychiatry, psychiatry, Thomas Szasz

Madlove: A Designer Asylum

Author: Editorial 14th September 2018 0 Comments

The Madlove website asks: “Is it possible to go mad in a positive way? How would you create a safe place in which to do so? If you designed your own asylum, what would it be like? Madlove is a project…
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collaborative practice

asylum, asylum design, Hannah Hull, Madlove, madness, New Approaches, The Vacuum Cleaner

This Way Madness Lies – the asylum and beyond

Author: Editorial 27th April 2018 0 Comments

This Way Madness Lies , by Mike Jay, explores the meaning of madness, or mental illness, through the prism of the institution that defined it: the asylum. Combining the perspectives of doctors and patients, artists, social commentators and reformers, it tells the story of…
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emotion-focused care

asylum, books, Culture & Society, history, Mike Jay