Psychiatry - Ancients and Moderns by Jessica Wright Hardcover

About the Book

"This volume examines modern questions around psychiatry through a historical lens, teasing apart associations with ancient medicine, philosophy and myth to demonstrate how these reflect internal contradictions and ambiguities within modern conceptions of mental illness and its treatment. By exploring a series of explanatory models and diagnoses, and mapping key connections between ancient and modern frameworks, it demonstrates how the process of exploring the connections between modern and ancient psychiatry can illuminate modern understandings of mental illness, its therapies, and its place in contemporary society and culture"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Is psychiatry a distinctively modern approach to mental difference and distress, or is it a continuation of ancient Greek ideas - in the realm not only of medicine (consider 'melancholia'), but also of philosophy (source of the idea of 'therapeutics of the soul') and tragic drama (inspiration for, among other concepts, the 'Oedipus complex')? This volume examines how psychiatry, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy have been shaped by classical antiquity (and ideas about antiquity), and it explores the stories told about what this relationship between the psy disciplines and ancient Greece might mean.

Taking as a starting point the debate about what exactly mental illnesses might be, Jessica Wright explores how contemporary tensions and debates reflect efforts to smooth over inconsistencies and discontinuities between ancient and modern ideas about illnesses affecting the mind. The volume goes on to investigate key concepts that bridge classical antiquity and modern psychiatry, showing how these ideas have been adapted and repurposed for new circumstances, analysing how they are deployed to negotiate the legitimacy of current theories, and demonstrating how the roles they play in psychiatry reshape our understandings of antiquity itself. What emerges above all is how the process of examining the connections between modern psychiatry and classical antiquity, whether historical, constructed or imagined, can illuminate modern ideas about mental illness, approaches to treating it, and its place in contemporary society and culture.

Review Quotes

"This is a beautifully written account of the connections between ancient medicine and modern psychiatry. Jessica Wright has set out some fascinating details. But the most impressive aspect of the book is the breadth of understanding that she brings to bear on a range of complex concepts and phenomena." --Julian C Hughes, Honorary Professor, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, UK.

About the Author

Jessica Wright is a Teaching Fellow in Academic Skills Development at the Lifelong Learning Centre, University of Leeds, UK. They are author of The Care of the Brain in Early Christianity (2022).