(6 reviews) Author: ISBN : 9781421403977 New from $14.70 Format: PDFThis provocative history of bipolar disorder illuminates how perceptions of illness, if not the illnesses themselves, are mutable over time. Beginning with the origins of the concept of mania—and the term maniac—in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, renowned psychiatrist David Healy examines how concepts of mental afflictions evolved as scientific breakthroughs established connections between brain function and mental illness. Healy recounts the changing definitions of mania through the centuries, explores the effects of new terminology and growing public awareness of the disease on culture and society, and examines the rise of psychotropic treatments and pharmacological marketing over the past four decades. Along the way, Healy clears much of the confusion surrounding bipolar disorder even as he raises crucial questions about how, why, and by whom the disease is diagnosed.
Drawing heavily on primary sources and supplemented with interviews and insight gained over Healy’s long career, this lucid and engaging overview of mania sheds new light on one of humankind’s most vexing ailments.
- Series: Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease
- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1 edition (August 17, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1421403978
- ISBN-13: 978-1421403977
- Product Dimensions: 0.9 x 5.4 x 8.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Mania: A Short History of Bipolar Disorder PDF
David Healy is a professor of psychiatry at Cardiff University; in clear, jargon free prose he writes the history of mental illness, how our concepts and treatments of mental disorders have changed. He believes that history is part of the scientific process because by examining our beliefs and how they have changed we challenge them; he ridicules those like Fukuyama who believe that history has come to an end since the underlying notion of the end of history as well as the public relations departments of the pharmaceutical companies is that our practices are perfect and need never change. As evidence of the contrary, Healy notes, among many examples, such contemporary barbarism as the "treatment" of a 4 year old and a 2 year old with psychotropic drugs that resulted in their deaths.
Transnational corporations did not enter the mental illness market until after WWII. Among other things, WWII brought a paradigm shift in how disease was treated. Drugs such as antibiotics became the focus of all treatments, including mental illness. Chemical companies saw huge profits in drugs and spun off new drug companies which have become the most profitable corporate entities worldwide. As part of this history, much of the early focus on creating new drugs was the exploration of chemical dyes used in the chemical industry and to this day there are many drugs which resulted from that research. In order to maintain their profits, the drug companies aka "Big Pharm" have turned the science of mental health into junk. This is a partial list of how the pharmaceutical companies market their products:
1. They create associations for mental health care professionals and fund their publications;
2.
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