Overview
- Documents the changing attitudes to mental illness in Britain across the long eighteenth century
- Provides the first book-length study of the emotional landscape of early psychiatric reform
- Presents a compelling new framework for the emergence of the ‘humanitarian sensibility’
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions (PSHE)
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
Table of contents (7 chapters)
-
Front Matter
-
Insanity and the Sentimental Emotional Regime, c. 1770–1800
-
Front Matter
-
-
Lunacy Reform and the ‘Romantic’ Emotional Regime, c. 1790–1820
-
Front Matter
-
-
Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book explores the ways which people navigated the emotions provoked by the mad in Britain across the long eighteenth century. Building upon recent advances in the historical study of emotions, it plots the evolution of attitudes towards insanity, and considers how shifting emotional norms influenced the development of a ‘humanitarian’ temperament, which drove the earliest movements for psychiatric reform in England and Scotland. Reacting to a ‘culture of sensibility’, which encouraged tears at the sight of tender suffering, early asylum reformers chose instead to express their humanity through unflinching resolve, charging into madhouses to contemplate scenes of misery usually hidden from public view, and confronting the authorities that enabled neglect to flourish. This intervention required careful emotional management, which is documented comprehensively here for the first time. Drawing upon a wide array of medical and literary sources, this book provides invaluable insightsinto pre-modern attitudes towards insanity.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Mark Neuendorf is Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Adelaide, Australia. His research examines the emotions and print cultures of British psychiatry, with a particular focus on the emergence of organised psychiatric reform.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Emotions and the Making of Psychiatric Reform in Britain, c. 1770-1820
Authors: Mark Neuendorf
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in the History of Emotions
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84356-4
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-84355-7Published: 20 November 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-84358-8Published: 21 November 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-84356-4Published: 19 November 2021
Series ISSN: 2946-5958
Series E-ISSN: 2946-5966
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 297
Number of Illustrations: 11 b/w illustrations
Topics: History of Britain and Ireland, Cultural History, Social History, Psychiatry