On the Heels of Ignorance
Title | On the Heels of Ignorance PDF eBook |
Author | Owen Whooley |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Pages | 311 |
Release | 2019-04-23 |
Genre | Psychology |
ISBN | 022661641X |
Psychiatry has always aimed to peer deep into the human mind, daring to cast light on its darkest corners and untangle its thorniest knots, often invoking the latest medical science in doing so. But, as Owen Whooley’s sweeping new book tells us, the history of American psychiatry is really a record of ignorance. On the Heels of Ignorance begins with psychiatry’s formal inception in the 1840s and moves through two centuries of constant struggle simply to define and redefine mental illness, to say nothing of the best way to treat it. Whooley’s book is no antipsychiatric screed, however; instead, he reveals a field that has muddled through periodic reinventions and conflicting agendas of curiosity, compassion, and professional striving. On the Heels of Ignorance draws from intellectual history and the sociology of professions to portray an ongoing human effort to make sense of complex mental phenomena using an imperfect set of tools, with sometimes tragic results.
Creating Mental Illness
Title | Creating Mental Illness PDF eBook |
Author | Allan V. Horwitz |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Pages | 302 |
Release | 2020-04-09 |
Genre | Psychology |
ISBN | 022676589X |
“Filled with insights into the social, historical, and economic forces responsible for the overmedicalization of human unhappiness and distress.” —George Graham, Metapsychology In this surprising book, Allan V. Horwitz argues that our current conceptions of mental illness as a disease fit only a small number of serious psychological conditions and that most conditions currently regarded as mental illness are cultural constructions, normal reactions to stressful social circumstances, or simply forms of deviant behavior. “Thought-provoking and important . . . Drawing on and consolidating the ideas of a range of authors, Horwitz challenges the existing use of the term mental illness and the psychiatric ideas and practices on which this usage is based . . . Horwitz enters this controversial territory with confidence, conviction, and clarity.” —Joan Busfield, American Journal of Sociology “Horwitz properly identifies the financial incentives that urge therapists and drug companies to proliferate psychiatric diagnostic categories. He correctly identifies the stranglehold that psychiatric diagnosis has on research funding in mental health. Above all, he provides a sorely needed counterpoint to the most strident advocates of disease-model psychiatry.” —Mark Sullivan, Journal of the American Medical Association “Horwitz makes at least two major contributions to our understanding of mental disorders. First, he eloquently draws on evidence from the biological and social sciences to create a balanced, integrative approach to the study of mental disorders. Second, in accomplishing the first contribution, he provides a fascinating history of the study and treatment of mental disorders . . . from early asylum work to the rise of modern biological psychiatry.”— Debra Umberson, Quarterly Review of Biology
Knowledge in the Time of Cholera
Title | Knowledge in the Time of Cholera PDF eBook |
Author | Owen Whooley |
Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
Pages | 321 |
Release | 2013-04-11 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 022601746X |
In 1832, the arrival of cholera in the US created widespread panic throughout the country. For the rest of the century epidemics swept through American cities and towns like wildfire killing thousands. These cholera outbreaks raised questions about medical knowledge and its legitimacy, giving fuel to alternative medical sects that used the confusion of the epidemic to challenge both medical orthodoxy and the authority of the American Medical Association. Here, Whooley tells us the story of those dark days, centring his narrative on rivalries between medical and homeopathic practitioners.
Blood, Sweat, and High Heels
Title | Blood, Sweat, and High Heels PDF eBook |
Author | Cheryl Waiters |
Publisher | iUniverse |
Pages | 190 |
Release | 2011-10-24 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 9781462054947 |
Exemplified by the power of the human spirit, life in the face of death, she had the courage to challenge a generation to release the shackles of ignorance surrounding women and gender roles. All of this and more is lyrically conveyed in Cheryl Waiters' autobiographical novel titled "Blood Sweat & High Heels", based in Cleveland, Ohio. Her autobiography delivers a message of self-empowerment for women of all ages, nationalities and demonstrates unyielding courage to transcend the impossible and the unthinkable. Cheryl holds the noble distinction as the country's first African-American female to rise to the height of fame in her more than 20-year career in the male-dominated field of construction work, as a journeyman electrician. Waiters escorts the reader through a private tour of hell as she blows open the doors for an unauthorized peek inside the world of Mafia-controlled cities, labor unions, and life and death situations on job sites where women are anything but welcome. Haunting and intensely reflective, her birth and formative years are eloquently paired with historical movements that profoundly changed the world, from J.F.K to Martin Luther King, the rise of the Black Panther Movement, women's liberation, and hippies touting "free love and peace." The timeless genius of this story has not only captured an essential slice of history, but has also defined it. Given such an achievement of literary brilliance, IT IS DESTINED TO BECOME AN AMERICAN CLASSIC! Being born is like coming into the middle of a movie. You have to find out what happened before you arrived and catch up to where you are now. Everybody has a life, but the true gift lies in the ability to express that "life force" in a way that is thought provoking, entertaining, inspiring and educational to anyone who might see that life. This life then becomes moreit becomes art.
QI: The Book of Animal Ignorance
Title | QI: The Book of Animal Ignorance PDF eBook |
Author | John Lloyd |
Publisher | Faber & Faber |
Pages | 242 |
Release | 2009-01-08 |
Genre | Nature |
ISBN | 0571249175 |
Join QI's expedition into the animal kingdom to encounter 100 of its most remarkable subjects. Marvel at the elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and the woodlouse that drinks through its bottom. Albatrosses can fly non-stop for ten years without touching the ground. Box jellyfish have twenty-four eyes. Geese mourn their dead. Koalas don't drink. Monkeys pay to look at porn. Lobsters live for a century. Mice sing while having sex. Spiders can fly.
The Path to Hope
Title | The Path to Hope PDF eBook |
Author | Stephane Hessel |
Publisher | Other Press, LLC |
Pages | 63 |
Release | 2012-04-24 |
Genre | Philosophy |
ISBN | 1590515617 |
An incisive political tract that calls for a return to humanist values: equality, liberty, a return to community, mutual respect, freedom from poverty, and an end to theocracy and fundamentalism. The authors argue that a return to these values constitutes “a path to hope,” leading the way out of the present worldwide malaise brought on by economic collapse, moral failure, and an ignorance of history. For the authors, 20th-century fascism was no mere abstraction—it was a brutal system brought on by a similar malaise, a system they fought against. The uncertainly of our current political moment gives their book special urgency. The Path to Hope is written by two esteemed French thinkers—Stephane Hessel, editor of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and renowned philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin. Their writings have become bestsellers throughout Europe, and have also become foundational documents underpinning the worldwide protest movement.
Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness
Title | Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness PDF eBook |
Author | Anne Harrington |
Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company |
Pages | 477 |
Release | 2019-04-16 |
Genre | Psychology |
ISBN | 1324001976 |
“Superb… a nuanced account of biological psychiatry.” —Richard J. McNally In Mind Fixers, “the preeminent historian of neuroscience” (Science magazine) Anne Harrington explores psychiatry’s repeatedly frustrated efforts to understand mental disorder. She shows that psychiatry’s waxing and waning theories have been shaped not just by developments in the clinic and lab, but also by a surprising range of social factors. Mind Fixers recounts the past and present struggle to make mental illness a biological problem in order to lay the groundwork for creating a better future.