The last asylum : a memoir of madness in our times

In July 1988, Canadian-born historian Barbara Taylor was admitted to Friern Hospital, a once-notorious asylum for the insane. Her journey there began when, overwhelmed by anxiety as she completed her doctoral studies in London, England, she found relief by dosing herself with alcohol and tranquillizers. She then embarked on what would turn out to be a decades- long psychoanalysis. The analysis dredged up acutely painful memories of an unhappy and confusing childhood back in Saskatoon. As Taylor struggled to cope with these, she would twice be re-admitted to Friern. She took refuge in day-care institutions and a psychiatric hostel, all the while continuing her therapy, which eventually put her on the road to recovery. This searingly honest, beautifully written memoir is the narrative of the author’s madness years, set inside the wider story of our treatment of psychiatric illness: from the great age of asylums to the current era of community care, ‘Big Pharma’, and quick fixes. It is a meditation on her own experience as well as that of millions of others – both in Europe and in North America – who have suffered, are suffering, and will suffer from mental illness. N July 1988, Canadian-born historian Barbara Taylor was admitted into Friern, a once-notorious asylum for the insane. The journey that took her there began when, overwhelmed by anxiety as she completed her doctoral studies in London, England, she found relief by dosing herself with booze and barbiturates. She then embarked on what would turn out to be a decades-long course of psychoanalysis In the late 1970s, Barbara Taylor, then an acclaimed young historian, began to suffer from severe anxiety. In the years that followed, Taylor's world contracted around her illness. Eventually, she was admitted to what had once been England's largest psychiatric institutions, the infamous Friern Mental Hospital in London. Begins with Barbara Taylor's visit to the innocuously named Princess Park Manor in Friern Barnet, North London - a picture of luxury and repose. But this is the former site of one of England's most infamous lunatic asylums, the Middlesex County Pauper Lunatic Aslyum at Colney Hatch.