On The Heels Of Ignorance

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 tells 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.

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 tells 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.

Join QI's expedition into the animal kingdom to encounter 100 of its most remarkable subjects. Marvel at the elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and the woodlouse that drinks through its bottom. Albatrosses can fly non-stop for ten years without touching the ground. Box jellyfish have twenty-four eyes. Geese mourn their dead. Koalas don't drink. Monkeys pay to look at porn. Lobsters live for a century. Mice sing while having sex. Spiders can fly.

Exemplified by the power of the human spirit, life in the face of death, she had the courage to challenge a generation to release the shackles of ignorance surrounding women and gender roles. All of this and more is lyrically conveyed in Cheryl Waiters' autobiographical novel titled "Blood Sweat & High Heels", based in Cleveland, Ohio. Her autobiography delivers a message of self-empowerment for women of all ages, nationalities and demonstrates unyielding courage to transcend the impossible and the unthinkable. Cheryl holds the noble distinction as the country's first African-American female to rise to the height of fame in her more than 20-year career in the male-dominated field of construction work, as a journeyman electrician. Waiters escorts the reader through a private tour of hell as she blows open the doors for an unauthorized peek inside the world of Mafia-controlled cities, labor unions, and life and death situations on job sites where women are anything but welcome. Haunting and intensely reflective, her birth and formative years are eloquently paired with historical movements that profoundly changed the world, from J.F.K to Martin Luther King, the rise of the Black Panther Movement, women's liberation, and hippies touting "free love and peace." The timeless genius of this story has not only captured an essential slice of history, but has also defined it. Given such an achievement of literary brilliance, IT IS DESTINED TO BECOME AN AMERICAN CLASSIC! Being born is like coming into the middle of a movie. You have to find out what happened before you arrived and catch up to where you are now. Everybody has a life, but the true gift lies in the ability to express that "life force" in a way that is thought provoking, entertaining, inspiring and educational to anyone who might see that life. This life then becomes moreit becomes art.

In this surprising book, Allan V. Horwitz argues that our current conceptions of mental illness as a disease fit only a small number of serious psychological conditions and that most conditions currently regarded as mental illness are cultural constructions, normal reactions to stressful social circumstances, or simply forms of deviant behavior. "Thought-provoking and important. . .Drawing on and consolidating the ideas of a range of authors, Horwitz challenges the existing use of the term mental illness and the psychiatric ideas and practices on which this usage is based. . . . Horwitz enters this controversial territory with confidence, conviction, and clarity."—Joan Busfield, American Journal of Sociology "Horwitz properly identifies the financial incentives that urge therapists and drug companies to proliferate psychiatric diagnostic categories. He correctly identifies the stranglehold that psychiatric diagnosis has on research funding in mental health. Above all, he provides a sorely needed counterpoint to the most strident advocates of disease-model psychiatry."—Mark Sullivan, Journal of the American Medical Association "Horwitz makes at least two major contributions to our understanding of mental disorders. First, he eloquently draws on evidence from the biological and social sciences to create a balanced, integrative approach to the study of mental disorders. Second, in accomplishing the first contribution, he provides a fascinating history of the study and treatment of mental disorders. . . from early asylum work to the rise of modern biological psychiatry."—Debra Umberson, Quarterly Review of Biology

In 1832, the arrival of cholera in the US created widespread panic throughout the country. For the rest of the century epidemics swept through American cities and towns like wildfire killing thousands. These cholera outbreaks raised questions about medical knowledge and its legitimacy, giving fuel to alternative medical sects that used the confusion of the epidemic to challenge both medical orthodoxy and the authority of the American Medical Association. Here, Whooley tells us the story of those dark days, centring his narrative on rivalries between medical and homeopathic practitioners.

Malcolm, an aging hairdresser, is reclusive and bitter. Alison, a salon apprentice, is dismissed by Malcolm for her embarrassing innocence. When their colleague is murdered by neo-Nazis, however, the two embark on an unplanned pilgrimage to Auschwitz. A moving and sharp-edged novel by the award-winning author of Ellen in Pieces.

Mind Fixers tells the history of psychiatry’s quest to understand the biological basis of mental illness and asks where we need to go from here. In Mind Fixers, Anne Harrington, author of The Cure Within, explores psychiatry’s repeatedly frustrated struggle to understand mental disorder in biomedical terms. She shows how the stalling of early twentieth century efforts in this direction allowed Freudians and social scientists to insist, with some justification, that they had better ways of analyzing and fixing minds. But when the Freudians overreached, they drove psychiatry into a state of crisis that a new “biological revolution” was meant to alleviate. Harrington shows how little that biological revolution had to do with breakthroughs in science, and why the field has fallen into a state of crisis in our own time. Mind Fixers makes clear that psychiatry’s waxing and waning biological enthusiasms have been shaped not just by developments in the clinic and lab, but also by a surprising range of social factors, including immigration, warfare, grassroots activism, and assumptions about race and gender. Government programs designed to empty the state mental hospitals, acrid rivalries between different factions in the field, industry profit mongering, consumerism, and an uncritical media have all contributed to the story as well. In focusing particularly on the search for the biological roots of schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder, Harrington underscores the high human stakes for the millions of people who have sought medical answers for their mental suffering. This is not just a story about doctors and scientists, but about countless ordinary people and their loved ones. A clear-eyed, evenhanded, and yet passionate tour de force, Mind Fixers recounts the past and present struggle to make mental illness a biological problem in order to lay the groundwork for creating a better future, both for those who suffer and for those whose job it is to care for them.