History of psychiatry

This chapter covers some key historic context around how madness was thought about over different time periods. This includes some key ideas from different centuries, mainly in the US or UK areas, Emil Kraeplins original ideas, and early treatments of madness such as lobotomies and electroshock. I consider further the power psychiatry holds in deciding who may be deemed ‘normal’ and who is not, bringing in ideas around how race and gender influence. I discuss the classification of mental health disorders and the development of the DSM and critique its validity. I discuss depression and how it has been thought about and treated over the years, and the chemical imbalance theory. I end with a case study about a British woman’s involvement with the mental health system.