Series Two Introduction

You might recognise my voice from listening to some or all of my previous set of 44 podcasts about the history of psychiatry in Britain since 1500. That series was mostly a medical history, explaining who cared for the mad, where, and how. I talked about asylums, care in the community, medical and lay understandings of the causes of mental problems, changing therapies, and the kinds of mental conditions that existed in the past. Put simply, the series was about what lay and professional people did to help the mad over the last five centuries.

But along the way I also tried to bring out what madness was like for sufferers and those around them, explaining the social, economic, scientific, cultural, and political context of welfare provision.

The series is still available in its entirety and will be for some time to come. You’ll find a link to it on the main web page.

What I’m trying to do with the current series of 26 podcasts is offer a counterpoint, by giving a sense of the lived experience of madness. I want to explore the thoughts and feelings of those who knew they had mental problems, or who others thought disordered, using mainly their own words or, sometimes, descriptions that followed closely what they said and did.