Psychiatry: Antiquity and Its Legacy

Modern psychiatry is firmly rooted in antecedents from classical antiquity, from the ancient Greek concept of 'therapeutics of the soul' (an ancient parallel to modern 'talk therapy') to mythical exemplars such as Oedipus.This volume examines the modern question of what counts as mental illness, and how we should address it, through a historical lens that takes into account not only explanatory models, but also diagnostic and therapeutic approaches across the ages.

Taking the debate about whether mental illnesses are cultural constructs as a starting point, Jessica Wright teases apart associations with ancient medicine, philosophy and myth to demonstrate how these reflect internal contradictions and ambiguities within modern conceptions of mental illness and its treatment, including questions such as (when) is depression an emotion, a mood, or a mental illness? What kind of category is mental illness? Are mental illnesses universal or context-specific? The volume also explores a series of diagnoses and maps key connections between ancient and modern frameworks, as well as showing how ancient concepts of brain-based mental illness provide the foundations for the modern shift in focus to the brain and its subsequent implications for ethical and political concerns. What emerges vividly is how the process of exploring the connections between modern and ancient psychiatry, whether historical, constructed or imagined, can illuminate modern understandings of mental illness, its therapies, and its place in contemporary society and culture.