Mind, Modernity, Madness: The Impact of Culture on Human Experience
Mind, Modernity, Madnessdisplays an astonishing level of research...Greenfeld's book most persuasively demonstrates the lack of consensus in the scientific community and beyond, over the causes, treatment and prevalence of schizophrenia and manic depression, both in America and worldwide...Liah Greenfeld's call for a broader understanding of the role of culture in the growth of the illnesses of schizophrenia and manic depression seems perfectly timed to join the debate over the balance between science and culture in the diagnosis and treatment of these complex illnesses. (Catherine McKennaMAKE: A Literary Magazine2013-06-01)Liah Greenfeldhas written a book of weight (figuratively and literally) and power. It is an avalanche that pulls the reader with it into a new landscape. (Charles Lindholm, Boston University)Explaining madness in cultural terms is what makesGreenfeld's book so audacious. A classical parallel would be with Durkheim's attempt to explain suicide through sociological categories. Her reasoning is strong; the data extensive; the conclusions counterintuitive. The book represents a triumph of imaginative thought. (Peter Baehr, Lingnan University)What most distinguishesGreenfeld's model of the mind from so much else in the field is that she brings together biological and cultural approaches to mental illness inclusively rather than exclusively, in a way that enlarges rather than diminishes both. While accepting the biological reality of major mental illnesses, her analysis is focused not simply on the brain, in a reductive sense, but on themindas a product of experience and learning as well as biology. Likewise, she applies cultural concepts to psychiatry not in the reductive, purely social-constructionist manner of Laing, Foucault, and Szasz, but so as to foster understanding of cultural and historical variations in the incidence and expression of mental illness that biology alone cannot explain. (Harold J. Bursztajn, M.D., Harvard Medical School)Greenfeldoffers a sweeping, sociologically grounded theory of the relationship between madness, mind, and society…It is a significant contribution to understanding mental illness and the more general interplay between mind, self, and society. (S. C. WardChoice2013-10-01)[A] magnificent sweep of several fields…Those apt to gain most fromGreenfeld’s remarkable tome are biological psychiatrists, legislators, and community leaders. Physicians, behavioral scientists, futurists, parents, and academicians will find the read exhilarating and useful. Cultural psychiatrists, ethnopsychiatric investigators, and psychiatric epidemiologists--those least apt to realize totally new understandings--will still find their comprehensions expanded in unanticipated ways. (Joseph WestermeyerAmerican Journal of Psychiatry2014-02-01)