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Why Talk About Madness?

Bringing History into the Conversation

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Authors:
  1. Catharine Coleborne

    1. School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia

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  • Opens up new discussions about the value of historical perspectives on mental health to contemporary research and policy
  • Argues that we must engage with and make public historical narratives of madness in order to understand institutional mental healthcare today
  • Draws on transnational case studies from the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand

Part of the book series: Mental Health in Historical Perspective (MHHP)

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Why Talk About Madness?

    • Catharine Coleborne
    Pages 1-13

  3. Asylum Archives and Cases as Stories

    • Catharine Coleborne
    Pages 15-28

  4. The Asylum and Its Afterlife

    • Catharine Coleborne
    Pages 29-40

  5. Extra-Institutional Care, or Madness Uncontained

    • Catharine Coleborne
    Pages 41-52

  6. Talking About Mental Health and the Politics of Madness

    • Catharine Coleborne
    Pages 53-63

  7. What’s the Story?

    • Catharine Coleborne
    Pages 65-72

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 73-82
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Keywords

About this book

This short book argues for the relevance of historical perspectives on mental health, exploring how these histories can and should inform debates about mental healthcare today. Why is it important to study the history of madness? What does it mean to voice these histories? What can these tell us about the challenges and legacies of mental health care across the world today? Offering an intervention into new ways of thinking – and talking – about ‘mad’ history, Catharine Coleborne explores the social and cultural impact of the history of the mad movement, self-help and mental health consumer advocacy from the 1960s inside a longer tradition of ‘writing madness’. Starting with a brief history of the relevance of first-person accounts, then looking at the significance of other ways of representing the psychiatric ‘patient’, ‘survivor’ or ‘consumer’ over time, this book aims to escape from dominant modes of writing about the asylum.   

Reviews

“An enjoyable read without feeling onerous. It is highly accessible, informative, and most importantly centres the reader within key debates in historical studies of madness. … each chapter is brief, accessible, and clear, and is accompanied by a useful list of suggested readings for the reader who wants to take their study further. … It is an excellent example of historical writing for a general audience, as well as a wonderful resource for historians and students of history.” (Gemma Lucy Smart, Health and History, Vol. 23 (2), 2021) “Mental breakdown is as old as humanity, but there are, it turns out, a host of new ways of thinking and talking about it. Catharine Coleborne’s book provides an expert and highly readable overview of “the new mad studies”. Drawing on her career-long research in the field, Coleborne guides us through the most recent and provocative ideas about human madness. … Among the plethora of books on this vexing subject, Coleborne’s concise account strikes me as the most up-to-date, interesting, and the best informed.” (Mark Micale, Emeritus Professor, University of Illinois, USA)

Authors and Affiliations

  • School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Australia

    Catharine Coleborne

About the author

Catharine Coleborne is Professor and Head of the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle, Australia. With Matthew Smith, she edits the Mental Health in Historical Perspective series for Palgrave. Her previous publications include Insanity, Identity and Empire: Colonial Institutional Confinement in Australia and New Zealand, 1870–1910 (2015). Catharine is currently second Chief Investigator on two Australian Research Council Discovery Projects focused on histories of mental health and psychiatry in Australia spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.   

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Why Talk About Madness?

  • Book Subtitle: Bringing History into the Conversation

  • Authors: Catharine Coleborne

  • Series Title: Mental Health in Historical Perspective

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21096-0

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-21095-3Published: 02 January 2020

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-21096-0Published: 13 January 2020

  • Series ISSN: 2634-6036

  • Series E-ISSN: 2634-6044

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIII, 82

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Popular Science in History, Social History, History of Medicine, Psychiatry, Modern History

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