Modern understandings of asylums, mental disorder, and psychiatry are strongly influenced by the medicalised identities portrayed in film. This podcast sets out some examples of the interaction between sociology, psychiatry, and social comment, and between medicine and history, to show how film representations shape understandings – and how they are often a product of their own time. It concludes by looking at more modern documentaries produced by sufferers.

Image of the week: George III in his final illness, c. 1820

Full Bibliographic Record: Wellcome Library Catalogue L0000507

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

For the last three centuries newspapers have been the main organ by which the British general public has been informed about events outside their immediate knowledge. Though they deal in facts, the representations newspapers offer are mixed with literary elements because they are designed to entertain, provoke, and change, as well as simply to inform. This podcast looks at historic and modern representations and misrepresentations of mental disorder, especially in the periodical press.

Image of the week: Anorexia Nervosa. By William Withey Gull, M.D., published in Transactions of the Clinical Society of London (1873).

Full Bibliographic Record: Wellcome Library Catalogue L0073689

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

For the last three centuries newspapers have been the main organ by which the British general public has been informed about events outside their immediate knowledge. Though they deal in facts, the representations newspapers offer are mixed with literary elements because they are designed to entertain, provoke, and change, as well as simply to inform. This podcast looks at historic and modern representations and misrepresentations of mental disorder, especially in the periodical press.

Image of the week: Anorexia Nervosa. By William Withey Gull, M.D., published in Transactions of the Clinical Society of London (1873).

Full Bibliographic Record: Wellcome Library Catalogue L0073689

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Perceptions of madness and those who care for it have always been shaped by representations in mass media. Nowadays we have radio and television as well as the internet and for the whole of the twentieth century film shaped understandings. Prior to this there was literature, newspapers, drama, and art. This block of podcasts provides examples to show how representations past and present create understandings of what mental disorder is and of the alleged threat to liberty or personal freedom, posed by being labelled insane.

Image of the week: female maniac, late nineteenth century

Full Bibliographic Record: Wellcome Library Catalogue L0026690

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Perceptions of madness and those who care for it have always been shaped by representations in mass media. Nowadays we have radio and television as well as the internet and for the whole of the twentieth century film shaped understandings. Prior to this there was literature, newspapers, drama, and art. This block of podcasts provides examples to show how representations past and present create understandings of what mental disorder is and of the alleged threat to liberty or personal freedom, posed by being labelled insane.

Image of the week: female maniac, late nineteenth century

Full Bibliographic Record: Wellcome Library Catalogue L0026690

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The last two podcasts have shown how mad people are different before the law. Psychiatry has certain legal privileges in how it handles patients. The implications of these two facts have stimulated debate for at least the last three centuries. I’d like to confront them this week and discuss the charge that psychiatry and the law conspire to oppress certain sections of the population. The podcast revisits some of the themes of anti-psychiatry and shows how they influence modern perceptions of the practice of mental medicine.

Image of the week: man in restraint chair, West Riding Lunatic Asylum, Wakefield, Yorkshire, c. 1869

Full Bibliographic Record: Wellcome Library Catalogue L0019069

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The last two podcasts have shown how mad people are different before the law. Psychiatry has certain legal privileges in how it handles patients. The implications of these two facts have stimulated debate for at least the last three centuries. I’d like to confront them this week and discuss the charge that psychiatry and the law conspire to oppress certain sections of the population. The podcast revisits some of the themes of anti-psychiatry and shows how they influence modern perceptions of the practice of mental medicine.

Image of the week: man in restraint chair, West Riding Lunatic Asylum, Wakefield, Yorkshire, c. 1869

Full Bibliographic Record: Wellcome Library Catalogue L0019069

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

All parts of Britain and Ireland had laws to safeguard the physical welfare and supervise the management of the finances, of adults with a mental illness or impairment. These laws remained more or less unchanged from the Middle Ages until the twentieth century and the essential principles are still enshrined in very recent legislation. This podcast looks at the legal procedures necessary to prove that a person could not manage their own affairs and at the place of medical certification in admission to an asylum.

Image of the week: old man suffering from senile dementia, c. 1890

Full Bibliographic Record: Wellcome Library Catalogue L0026689

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

All parts of Britain and Ireland had laws to safeguard the physical welfare and supervise the management of the finances, of adults with a mental illness or impairment. These laws remained more or less unchanged from the Middle Ages until the twentieth century and the essential principles are still enshrined in very recent legislation. This podcast looks at the legal procedures necessary to prove that a person could not manage their own affairs and at the place of medical certification in admission to an asylum.

Image of the week: old man suffering from senile dementia, c. 1890

Full Bibliographic Record: Wellcome Library Catalogue L0026689

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

For centuries the development of psychiatry was shaped by social norms, political climates, and legal frameworks. In this block of podcasts I want to talk about psychiatry’s relationship with the law, both from a sufferer’s point of view and a medical practitioner’s. I’m going to discuss the boundary between mental capacity and incapacity before the civil and criminal law, bringing out how the mentally impaired were protected from blame or exploitation. In this podcast I look at insanity defences and the criminal law, and particularly at who decided whether an alleged criminal was insane in the past.

Image of the week: Daniel M’Naughten, 1843

Full Bibliographic Record: Wellcome Library Catalogue L0000720

Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/