Schizophrenia was 20th century psychiatry’s arch concept of madness. Yet for most of that century it was both problematic and contentious. This history explores schizophrenia’s historic instability via themes such as symptoms, definition, classification and anti-psychiatry. In doing so, it opens up new ways of understanding 20th century madness.
Table of Content
Introduction
1. Schizodia: The Lexicon
2. The Split Personality
3. Definitions of Schizophrenia
4. Catatonia: Faces in the Fire
5. Chasing the Phantom: Classification
6. Myth and Forgetting: Bleuler’s Four As
7. Social Prejudice
8. Contesting Schizophrenia?
9. Manufacturing Consensus in North America
10. 20th Century Schizophrenia
Epilogue: Consider Nijinsky
Appendix A: Goodbye to Hebephrenia
About the author
Kieran Mc Nally previously studied and worked at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK. He is currently Adjunct Lecturer in Psychology at University College Dublin, Ireland, specializing in the history of psychiatry. He is also the author of the ecological and social history,
The Island Imagined by the Sea.