Madness Is Civilization
When the Diagnosis Was Social, 1948-1980
In the 1960s and 1970s, a popular diagnosis for America's problems was that society was becoming a madhouse. In this intellectual and cultural history, Michael E. Staub examines a time when many believed insanity was a sane reaction to obscene social conditions, psychiatrists were agents of repression, asylums were gulags for society's undesirables, and mental illness was a concept with no medical basis.
"Madness Is Civilization" explores the general consensus that societal ills – from dysfunctional marriage and family dynamics to the Vietnam War, racism, and sexism – were at the root of mental illness. Staub chronicles the surge in influence of socially attuned psychodynamic theories along with the rise of radical therapy and psychiatric survivors movements. He shows how the theories of antipsychiatry held unprecedented sway over an enormous range of medical, social, and political debates until a bruising backlash against these theories – part of the reaction to the perceived excesses and self-absorptions of the 1960s – effectively distorted them into caricatures. Throughout, Staub reveals that at stake in these debates of psychiatry and politics was nothing less than how to think about the institution of the family, the nature of the self, and the prospects for, and limits of, social change.
The first study to describe how social diagnostic thinking emerged, "Madness Is Civilization" casts new light on the politics of the postwar era.
Reviews
"Fiercely argued and wide ranging, 'Madness Is Civilization' revisits that much-reviled and much-celebrated period in US history, the sixties. But this view is through the looking glass of a cultural argument about psychosis as both indictment of and liberation from a repressive society. Sharply observed, reliably provocative, and tension-riddled to the last line, Staub's reclamation of the unfinished legacy of a decade is sure to be widely read and debated" – Kim Hopper, Columbia University
"'Madness Is Civilization' is a fresh and analytically stunning account of the critiques of psychiatry that prevailed in the decades after World War II. Staub explores the cultural and political meanings of the idea that insanity was a reasonable response to a society gone mad. Boldly, he revives the works of such luminaries as Theodor Adorno, Thomas Szasz, and R. D. Laing, and recounts the activism of such fascinating antipsychiatry movements as radical therapy and patients' rights. In creating this exceptionally readable account, Staub utilizes a variety of sources ranging from medical to popular. 'Madness Is Civilization' is a must read" – Mari Jo Buhle, author of "Feminism and Its Discontents: A Century of Struggle with Psychoanalysis"
"Draws unexpected and fascinating connections between a host of important postwar thinkers, many of whom are often thought to have been at odds with each other but whom Staub persuasively depicts as having created and inhabited the same cultural moment. With creative new arguments about antipsychiatry and its connections to intellectual radicalism on both the left and the right, this is a valuable contribution to American intellectual history" – David Herzberg, University of Buffalo
"This lively examination of American therapeutic culture from the late 1940's to 1980 examines how key events – fascism, the Cold War, the New Left, Civil Rights, feminism, Vietnam – shaped American psychiatry. The commitment to understanding an individual's familial, social, and political contexts becomes in Staub's hands a story of professional twists, turns, and unintended consequences. Humanistic therapies often failed to produce progressive outcomes, ushering in an age of biochemical solutions in psychiatric treatment. Wonderfully accessible and full of cultural irony, 'Madness Is Civilization' is essential reading for scholars interested in the relationship between American culture and politics" – Regina Morantz-Sanchez, University of Michigan
