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Sep. 28th, 2012 08:03 pmI finished reading Edward Shorter's A History of Psychiatry this morning.
...What. What. What even was that?
No, seriously. What?
Why exactly did Shorter think that what his history of psychiatry needed was - - -
Seriously, there are so many bizarre interpretative choices in here I hardly know where to start.
Shall I start with Shorter's assertion that PTSD is a creation of Vietnam veterans who resented their difficulty in returning to normal life? I appear to have done so. Wow. Um. Oh, but I'm being unfair, that's near the end. What about the beginning?
Well. Well. Well.
...The beginning leads us to Shorter's declaration of early psychiatry's "genetic perspective." All very well, except that he's located the beginning of psychiatry in the eighteenth century.
Which doesn't actually get into the book's major problems, but I do think this kind of. Gestures loosely in their direction, at least.
...What. What. What even was that?
No, seriously. What?
Why exactly did Shorter think that what his history of psychiatry needed was - - -
Seriously, there are so many bizarre interpretative choices in here I hardly know where to start.
Shall I start with Shorter's assertion that PTSD is a creation of Vietnam veterans who resented their difficulty in returning to normal life? I appear to have done so. Wow. Um. Oh, but I'm being unfair, that's near the end. What about the beginning?
Well. Well. Well.
...The beginning leads us to Shorter's declaration of early psychiatry's "genetic perspective." All very well, except that he's located the beginning of psychiatry in the eighteenth century.
Which doesn't actually get into the book's major problems, but I do think this kind of. Gestures loosely in their direction, at least.
