The English Malady (History of Psychology Series))

Rating:
Summary: Premonitions of the Modern World
Review: Ian Irvine, La Trobe Uni Bendigo ([e-mail]) This great Early Modern text on 'melancholy' or 'the spleen' is well worth a read for anybody interested in the history of the 'maladies of the subject'. Written at a time when the humoral system of psychology was under increasing pressure from early scientific models of the psyche, Cheyne's text offered a new perspective on the problem of melancholy. Broadly speaking, the perspective is sociological. That is to say the 'English Malady' is linked by Cheyne to the social conditions that prevailed in England in the early 18th century, rather than to the particular moral attributes of the sufferer of melancholy. The change is subtle but of utmost importance to the history of subjectivity. According to Cheyne the English Malady was caused by the luxurious lifestyle of the wealthier Englishman or woman of the day. Many later sociological terms for similar states of psychological distress were developments of Cheyne's cultural approach to psychic ailments. e.g. alienation, estrangement, chronic ennui/boredom, anomie, neurosis, anxiety, disenchantment, depression, nerves, and so on. The text is also quite humorous in places. This stylistic feature gives the reader some relief from the seriousness of the material under discussion. For anyone interested in the origins of many of our modern (and postmodern) 'maladies of the subject' Cheyne's book is essential reading.

Rating:
Summary: Premonitions of the Modern World
Review: Ian Irvine, La Trobe Uni Bendigo ([e-mail]) This great Early Modern text on 'melancholy' or 'the spleen' is well worth a read for anybody interested in the history of the 'maladies of the subject'. Written at a time when the humoral system of psychology was under increasing pressure from early scientific models of the psyche, Cheyne's text offered a new perspective on the problem of melancholy. Broadly speaking, the perspective is sociological. That is to say the 'English Malady' is linked by Cheyne to the social conditions that prevailed in England in the early 18th century, rather than to the particular moral attributes of the sufferer of melancholy. The change is subtle but of utmost importance to the history of subjectivity. According to Cheyne the English Malady was caused by the luxurious lifestyle of the wealthier Englishman or woman of the day. Many later sociological terms for similar states of psychological distress were developments of Cheyne's cultural approach to psychic ailments. e.g. alienation, estrangement, chronic ennui/boredom, anomie, neurosis, anxiety, disenchantment, depression, nerves, and so on. The text is also quite humorous in places. This stylistic feature gives the reader some relief from the seriousness of the material under discussion. For anyone interested in the origins of many of our modern (and postmodern) 'maladies of the subject' Cheyne's book is essential reading.