Pauline recommends:
Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors by Lisa Appignanesi
It seems strange to recommend a book about the history of madness as a ‘page-turner’ but Lisa Appignanesi’s exploration of this subject covering the last two centuries and relating it to women in particular was a very absorbing and accessible read. She looks at the developments in the diagnoses and treatments of mental illness, always considering the social construction of madness and analysing the different ways to be mad in each century (one nineteenth century mind doctor delared that to find the best female mental health…’give me the little woman who has not been ‘educated’ too much’).
The author moves from times when physical brutality was often thought to cure (bleeding, purging, icy baths) to a study of today’s therapies and chemically-based treatments as…’ more of our unhappiness is medicalised’.She makes use of case histories to illustrate her points, both those of ordinary women and famous ones- e.g. Marilyn Munroe, Virginia Woolf, Mary Lamb and Zelda Fitzgerald. Women’ roles on both sides of the asylum door – as women have themselves become practitioners and professionals in the last decades – are studied but do not lead to quite the conclusions the author had hoped for.
I particularly enjoyed the historical context of this book after reading two novels ,Fingersmith by Sarah Waters and Restoration by Rose Tremain….although I keep myself under observation as novel-reading for women may overexcite and lead to fits of hysterics and delusional behaviour!!
