Hardcover, 512 pages
Published May 17, 2022 by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry's Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness by sociologist Andrew Scull is a critical history of two hundred years of treatment of mental disorders in the United States. From the "birth of the asylum" in the 1830's to the drug trials and genetic studies of the 2000's, Scull catalogues efforts by psychoanalysts, psychologists, neuroscientists and social reformers to diagnose and treat mental maladies.
Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry's Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness by sociologist Andrew Scull is a critical history of two hundred years of treatment of mental disorders in the United States. From the "birth of the asylum" in the 1830's to the drug trials and genetic studies of the 2000's, Scull catalogues efforts by psychoanalysts, psychologists, neuroscientists and social reformers to diagnose and treat mental maladies.
Well written but horrifying. The first third or so was a bit gruesome - crazy people were really treated brutally in the first part of the 20th century.
