The Psychiatric Persuasion : Knowledge, Gender, and Power in Modern America

In the years between 1900 and 1930, American psychiatrists transformed their profession from a marginal science focused primarily on the care of the mentally ill into a powerful discipline concerned with analyzing the common difficulties of everyday life. How did psychiatrists effect such a dramatic change in their profession's fortunes and aims? Here, Elizabeth Lunbeck examines how psychiatry grew to take the whole world of human endeavor as its object. In The Years Between 1900 And 1930, American Psychiatrists Transformed Their Profession From A Marginal Science Focused Primarily On The Care Of The Mentally Ill Into A Powerful Discipline Concerned With Analyzing The Common Difficulties Of Everyday Life. How Did Psychiatrists Effect Such A Dramatic Change In Their Profession's Fortunes And Aims? How Did Their New Cultural Authority Affect Their Relationship With Their Patients? How Did They Treat Social Workers, All Of Them Women, Who Were Striving To Develop Their Own Professional Identities? In Answering These Questions, Elizabeth Lunbeck Focuses On The Revelatory Ideas Of Gender That Structured The New Psychiatry Of The Normal, A Field That Grew To Take The Whole World Of Human Endeavor As Its Object.^ Lunbeck Locates Her Study In Early Twentieth-century Boston, Providing A Vivid Picture Not Only Of The Boston Psychopathic Hospital, Upon Whose Patient Records She Has Drawn Extensively, But Also Of The Increasingly Urbanized Society That Shaped Its Goals And Practices. These Boston Psychiatrists Made Strenuous Attempts To Deal With The Treatment Of Syphilis And With Other Newly Urgent Social Issues, Such As Immigration, Poverty, Delinquency, And Drunkenness. More Significantly They Gained Unprecedented Entree Into The Private Realm Of The Home. Lunbeck Follows Psychiatrists As They Turned The Problems They Identified There - Sexuality, Marriage, Relations Between The Sexes - Into The Stuff Of Their Science.^ In The Process, Issues Of Gender And Personal Identity Assumed A New Prominence In Psychiatric Thought. Lunbeck's Sweeping Narrative, In Fact, Deals Not Just With The Development Of Psychiatry But With The Uncertain And Often Stormy Advent Of Sexual Modernity, A Modernity That Many Have Suggested Was Enabled By Psychiatry. The New Psychiatry Would Continue To Deal With Recognized Mental Illness, But The Question Of What And Who Was Normal Increasingly Would Engage The Psychiatrist's Interest. As An Explanation Of How This Came To Be So, This Book Will Interest Students Of The History Of Psychiatry And Of Science, As Well As Those Readers Concerned With Gender Issues And The Development Of American Culture In General.--jacket. Pt. 1. From Insanity To Normality : Psychiatry Between Old And New ; Professing Gender ; The Psychiatry Of Everyday Life -- Pt. 2. Institutional Practices : Pathways To Psychiatric Scrutiny ; Classification ; Institutional Discipline -- Pt. 3. Psychopathologies Of Everyday Life : Woman As Hypersexual ; Hysteria : The Revolt Of The Good Girl ; Modern Manhood, Dissolute And Respectable ; The Sexual Politics Of Marriage ; Women, Alone And Together. Elizabeth Lunbeck. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [327]-418) And Index. Frontmatter LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (page IX) LIST OF TABLES (page XI) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (page XIII) Introduction (page 3) PART ONE: FROM INSANITY TO NORMALITY ONE Psychiatry between Old and New (page 11) TWO Professing Gender (page 25) THREE The Psychiatry of Everyday Life (page 46) PART TWO: INSTITUTIONAL PRACTICES FOUR Pathways to Psychiatric Scrutiny (page 81) FIVE Classification (page 114) SIX Institutional Discipline (page 152) PART THREE: PSYCHOPATHOLOGIES OF EVERYDAY LIFE SEVEN Woman as Hypersexual (page 185) EIGHT Hysteria: The Revolt of the "Good Girl" (page 209) NINE Modern Manhood, Dissolute and Respectable (page 229) TEN The Sexual Politics of Marriage (page 256) ELEVEN Women, Alone and Together (page 293) Conclusion (page 306) Appendix (page 311) NOTE ON SOURCES (page 325) NOTES (page 327) INDEX (page 419) Using archival documentation from the Boston Psychopathic Hospital to recount the individual experiences of patients, psychiatrists and social workers, this study traces the evolution of American psychiatry - from a marginal science focused on the mentally ill, to a powerful discipline.