Synopsis:

A brave and brilliantly researched intellectual history of the relationship between women and mental illness since 1800. This is the story of how we have understood extreme states of mind over the last two hundred years and how we conceive of them today, from the depression suffered by Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath to the mental anguish and addictions of iconic beauties Zelda Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe. From Mary Lamb, sister of Charles, who in the throes of a nervous breakdown turned on her mother with a kitchen knife, to Freud, Jung, and Lacan, who developed the new women-centered therapies, Lisa Appignanesi's research traces how more and more of the inner lives and emotions of women have become a matter for medics and therapists. Here too is the story of how over the years symptoms and diagnoses have developed together to create fashions in illness and how treatments have succeeded or sometimes failed. Mad, Bad, and Sad takes us on a fascinating journey through the fragile, extraordinary human mind. 5 illustrations.

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Topics/Categories:

Gender Studies, Health

Genre:

General History, General Women's Studies - Interest, Psychology

Type of Work:

Book

Publishers:

W.W. Norton Co., Inc.

Purchase From:

Amazon

Original Publish Date:

April 29, 2008

Formats and associated ISBNs:

ISBN-10: 0393066630 ISBN-10: 0393066630

Formats:

Hardcover

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