Mad, Bad, and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors

This fascinating history of mind doctors and their patients probes the ways in which madness, badness, and sadness have been understood over the last two centuries. Lisa Appignanesi charts a story from the days when the mad were considered possessed to our own century when the official psychiatric manual lists some 350 mental disorders. Women play a key role here, both as patients among them Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, and Marilyn Monroe and as therapists. Controversially, Appignanesi argues that women have significantly changed the nature of mind-doctoring, but in the process they have also inadvertently highlighted new patterns of illness."

Author: Lisa Appignanesi
Publisher: Countryman Press
Published: 08/01/2009
Pages: 554
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.08lbs
Size: 8.38h x 5.32w x 1.07d
ISBN: 9780393335439

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 11/01/2009 pg. 20

About the Author
Appignanesi, Lisa: - Lisa Appignanesi, is the author of Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors and All About Love: Anatomy of an Unruly Emotion. A prize-winning novelist and writer, she is the president of English PEN. She lives in London.