A review by paulataua
Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry's Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness by Andrew Scull

3.0

One of the strangest histories of psychiatric practice that I have read. It is so uneven in its approach. The first part dealing with the distant past is just presented as a description of the practices without explanation or educated comment. Having some background in the subject I was able to follow, but I wondered what those without that background might have made of it. Those later sections devoted to psychoanalysis presented a major change in direction for the book. They seemed more interested in Freud’s prostrate problems, the fees being offered for lecture tours, and the films that came out of it, all of which seemed to have little to do with the apparent purpose of the book. I was surprised as much by the lack of discussion on the nature of the psychoanalysis, as I was by the need to mention David O. Selznick’s obsession with sex and amphetamines. The final part on the book dealt with the problems with the DSM and the somewhat failure of the pharmaceutical solution without really doing so with adequate enough depth to do justice to the subject. There are lots of reasons why I would not recommend this history of psychiatric practice, but there are enough gems inside to make it still worth reading for those interested in the subject.