Shrinks

Psychiatry has come a long way since the days of chaining "lunatics" in cold cells and parading them as freakish marvels before a gaping public. But, as Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, reveals, the path to legitimacy for "the black sheep of medicine" has been anything but smooth. Here, Dr. Lieberman traces the field from its birth as a mystic pseudo-science through its adolescence as a cult of "shrinks" to its late blooming maturity--beginning after World War II--as a science-driven profession that saves lives. It's a history full of fanciful theories--from Franz Mesmer's nineteenth-century notion of "animal magnetism" to the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder as late as the 1970s--and reckless treatments, including "coma therapies" and ice-pick lobotomies. It's also the story of a field divided against itself, torn between mind-focused psychiatrists like Sigmund Freud, whose theory of psychoanalysis dominated American psychiatry for more than half a century, and brain-focused neuroscientists like Eric Kandel, whose pioneering research helped bring the reign of Freud, his hero, to a close. At its heart, Shrinks is a detective tale, propelled by the central questions, what is mental illness and how can it be treated? The true heroes of this tale are the men and women who dared to challenge the status quo in pursuit of answers.--From publisher description.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction, Mental Health. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.