On the heels of ignorance : psychiatry and the politics of not knowing / Owen Whooley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whooley, Owen, author.

Contributor:

Class of 1924 Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychiatry.

History.

United States.

Psychiatry--United States--History.

Ignorance (Theory of knowledge).

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xiii, 296 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2019.

Summary:

Psychiatry has always aimed to peer deep into the human mind, daring to cast light on its darkest corners and untangle its thorniest knots, often invoking the latest medical science in doing so. But, as Owen Whooley's sweeping new book tell us, the history of American psychiatry is really a record of ignorance. On the Heels of Ignorance begins with psychiatry's formal inception in the 1840s and moves through two centuries of constant struggle simply to define and redefine mental illness, to say nothing of the best way to treat it. Whooley's book is no antipsychiatric screed, however; instead, he reveals a field that has muddled through periodic reinventions and conflicting agendas of curiosity, compassion, and professional striving. On the Heels of Ignorance draws from intellectual history and the sociology of professions to portray an ongoing human effort to make sense of complex mental phenomena using an imperfect set of tools, with sometimes tragic results.

Contents:

The general superintendence of all their departments

Unruly ignorance and pragmatic eclecticism

Ignorance repressed

It takes a community to raise a profession

Profession of the book.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Class of 1924 Book Fund.

ISBN:

9780226616247

022661624X

9780226616384

022661638X

OCLC:

1050140185