A Critical History of Schizophrenia

by Kieran McNally

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137456816
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	04/08/2016
Series:	Palgrave Studies in the Theory and History of Psychology
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	269
File size:	395 KB

About the Author

Kieran McNally 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.

Table of Contents

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

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Michael Schrift, DO (University of Washington School of Medicine)
Description: The definition, manifestations, and boundaries of dementia praecox or schizophrenia have morphed, expanded, and contracted for over 100 years since described by Emil Kraepelin and then Eugen Bleuler. The history of schizophrenia is unfortunately a sad reflection of the present state of psychiatric nosology. As opposed to the rest of nature, where living things can be classified by a principled taxonomy and validated by molecular genetics, psychiatric nosology has not evolved to that level. Psychiatric diagnoses are just descriptive and based not necessarily on science but on "expert opinion" and "committee consensus," which has been true for schizophrenia over the past century. A significant part of the problem is that we have no biological markers for any psychiatric disorder nor do we have clinicopathological correlations that the rest of medicine has had for the past 200 years. When so-called illnesses are based solely on a description, then signs and symptoms become reified and are thought of as illnesses themselves, such as what occurred with dropsy. This outstanding history of schizophrenia is a fascinating story of how signs and symptoms have been included and then excluded from the definition of schizophrenia, whose core concepts has never been reliably defined or validated.
Purpose: The purpose of this historical account of schizophrenia is to "increase the historical understanding of the concept of schizophrenia in the twentieth century." Actually, the author points out in a very scholarly way, the "concept" has been vague from the start and that, really, there isn't a coherent concept of schizophrenia.
Audience: The intended audience includes psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health workers, and anyone interested in psychiatric diagnosis and psychiatric history.
Features: The first chapter covers the lexicon of schizophrenia and how that has changed over the century. The confusion between so-called split personality and schizophrenia, which has been promoted and negated by psychiatry as well as the public, is covered in chapter 2. The various local and international definitions are reviewed in chapter 3, followed by the changing concept of catatonia and where it should be placed in chapter 4. The issue of classification and taxonomy in psychiatric sociology is covered in chapter 5. Bleuler's so-called Four As and how this ultravague concept came to be is described in detail in chapter 6. The final three chapters cover the issues of social prejudice, the antipsychiatry movement, and contesting the concept of schizophrenia and the manufacturing of consensus in North America with the development of DSM-III and its unvalidated revisions. The appendix discusses the virtual elimination of hebephrenia from psychiatric nosology and then the call for replacing the concept of schizophrenia with hebephrenia. Each chapter is thoroughly referenced and listed in the reference section. The book ends with an epilogue, a notes section, a further reading list, and an index, in addition to the appendix and the reference section.
Assessment: Written and edited by an expert in the field, this historical account of schizophrenia in the 20th century and beyond is a very welcome addition to the psychiatric literature and needs to be read by all psychiatrists or anyone interested psychiatric nosology. Scholarly written and well balanced, this book should be required reading by all psychiatrists and psychologists and especially trainees. It really made me think about how humble we need to be about our diagnoses.

Doody's Review Service

McNally’s overall goal—to analyze critically all attempts to define and delineate schizophrenia—is admirable. His attention to detail and his ability to reflect deeply on primary sources are clear strengths of his work. A Critical History of Schizophrenia will no doubt encourage greater awareness of the variability, inconsistency, and unpredictability of the concept of schizophrenia over time. This is a very important task, to which this book contributes a great deal.” (Bonnie Evans, ISIS, Vol. 108 (4), 2017)

“I have been gleefully reading Kieran McNally's book on the history of schizophrenia, which turns out to be a compendium of great detail and fascination. … It makes the book enormously valuable both as a treasure trove (in addition to an almost 30 page long reference section, there is a further 10 pages of recommended reading) and as a contribution to our understanding of this unwieldy but influential idea.” (Psychodiagnosticator, psychodiagnosticator.blogspot.de, December, 2016)

“This is a text that should be prescribed reading for all entering the mental health professions. It acts as a helpful antidote to the ahistorical certainty of many textbooks and many training courses.” (Pádraig Collins, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 61 (4), 2016)

From the Publisher