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

Rating:
Summary: eloquently written, but not always on the mark.
Review: Elizabeth Lunbeck's purpose in writing Psychiatric Persuasion is to reconstruct the development of psychiatry during the early part of the twentieth century through the use of the archives of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital, as well as to examine the process by which American psychiatrist effected a momentous shift in their discipline's foundations and fortunes. Using Foucaldian methodology, Lunbeck argues that the revolution in psychiatric thinking revamped the culture as a whole, placing psychiatric views and methods at the center of social and cultural life. In addition to this, she maintains that the source of psychiatry's cultural authority is not found within it institutions rather can be located in it's conceptual apparatuses. Unfortunatly, her book lacks contextual evidence from the period and has a sort of hermetic feel, sealed off from the influences of the period. Another problem is within the fundamental arguement; did psychiatrist in the 1910's actually effect this major change, or was it the psychoanalyst? Also, i think it is questionable when this shift actually took place- if it was in fact during the early part of this century, or if it was rather during the 1940's. Her femisnist and Foucaudian assumptions tend to skew the objectivity of her work. A final question that must be asked is whether this shift in the psychiatric profession was actually TO normalcy rather than AWAY FROM insanity. Overall, the book was well written, full of anecdoatal accounts that illustrated her points, and very interesting to read. Unfortunatley, it was too narrow in scope to make the broad claims it purported.