If we insist on prolonging our lives with education and modern medicine, shouldn't we also look at the equally, if not more important, means to create meaning and quality as well?

Pickstone (eds) (2007) Medicine, Madness and Social History: Essays in Honour of Roy Porter (Basingstoke, UK, and New York: Palgrave Macmillan). This paper will focus on representations of mad women, such as Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre, as well as the violent murderesses of Victorian sensation and crime fiction and show how their 'madness' is linked to sociological constructs of the body and in particular, to menstruation. Napisana zgrabnie (to może też być efekt dobrego tłumaczenia) lekkim językiem bez naukowego zadęcia - może dlatego, że autorka sam przyznaje się we wstępie, że wcześniej zajmowała się literaturą piękną. The premise from the outset is clear: Appignanesi does not see women as inherently mad, bad or sad but is fascinated as to why, over the years, we have continued to classify them in these categories far more often than we do men.It is astonishing to think that only a few hundred years ago, doctors did not imagine that their interaction with the patient had any effect or importance; neither did they regard anything the patient told them about their condition as being especially relevant. And in the past 50 years, has one important promise of the feminist project come true - that being able to have a profession and a less restricted life mean that women are less prone to mental illness? Given that the advent of remotely efficacious medicines for mental illness is relatively recent, these are largely dealt with in the final chapter. It has been suggested that positive experiences such as a happy childhood divert them from a life of crime, but high IQ might be their real salvation.

So, to get back to the false and/or misleading statements, - as I said, I realize that most of them seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of what was being said, but if she is wrong about these 'facts' or statements, it's hard to trust her other statements. Despite all this, I refused to attach the HPD label because I felt it would have only descriptive (not medical) value and might have been used unfairly to discredit her. I do know that Kurt Cobain was not a cutter or known for self-harm of that manner, and the fact that she would include what is supposed to be an actual quote in the text and never bother to double check the veracity - or even just the exact wording - of it at all just blew my mind. One commonality is perhaps that what is considered mental illness consists largely of unexplained physical symptoms.

Today, Gresham plays an important role in fostering a love of learning and a greater understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

I read Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation about a year ago and was hoping this would be the same type of book. Gresham College has offered an outstanding education to the public free of charge for over 400 years. As far as I can tell it does not set out with a feminist agenda; rather it is interested in how women have been treated and analysed by the ‘mind doctors’ from 1800 to the present. But as a perceived objective reporter, she has no business throwing in opinions at the end of paragraphs of history and assumed fact. Sexual orientation disturbance (SOD) was replaced on the list in 1980 with egodystonic homosexuality (EDH).Appignanesi manages to be remarkably balanced regarding Freud, explaining the revolutionary and progressive impacts of his work without minimising the problems with and misuse of it.

It both affirms common perceptions of the field and surprises; taking mental illness out of hospitals, off couches, and into our everyday lives – from popular malaise to the lithium in 7-Up. A may be well known for her didactic experiences with the histories of ill women and their providers, but at the end of almost 500 pages, I have to say, this was less historical and more editorial.

I say trends for lack of a better word; I speak of the way an illness is discovered and defined and then is what therapists concentrate of – wandering uteri, cold mothering, repressed memories, giving everyone SSRIs. I admire Appignanesi for taking on the ambitious and daunting task of writing Mad, Bad and Sad – no surprise that it was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction in 2008. Brandon was brought up by a brutal aunt who subjected her to beatings from the age of three: these began to form the basis for her childhood fantasies. In some ways she very nearly suggests that its the existence of the psychoanalytical professions that cause the problem in the first place.