Nobody's normal : how culture created the stigma of mental illness

Select an Action

Title:

Nobody is normal

Author:

Grinker, Roy Richard, 1961- author.

ISBN:

9780393531640

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

xxxii, 409 pages ; 24 cm

Abstract:

"A compassionate and eye-opening examination of evolving attitudes toward mental illness throughout history and the fight to end the stigma. For centuries, scientists and society cast moral judgments on anyone deemed mentally ill, confining many to asylums. In Nobody's Normal, anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker chronicles the progress and setbacks in the struggle against mental-illness stigma-from the eighteenth century, through America's major wars, and into today's high-tech economy. Grinker infuses the book with the personal history of his family's four generations of involvement in psychiatry, including his grandfather's analysis with Sigmund Freud, his own daughter's experience with autism, and culminating in his research on neurodiversity. Drawing on cutting-edge science, historical archives, and cross-cultural research in Africa and Asia, Nobody's Normal explains how we are transforming mental illness and offers a path to end the shadow of stigma. The preeminent historian of medicine, Sander Gilman, calls Nobody's Normal "the most important work on stigma in more than half a century.""-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: The road out of Bedlam -- Capitalism. Every man for himself ; The invention of mental illness ; The divided body ; The divided mind -- Wars. The fates of war ; Finding Freud ; War is kind ; Norma and Normman ; From the forgotten war to Vietnam ; Post-traumatic stress disorder ; Expectations of sickness -- Body and mind. Telling secrets ; An illness like any other? ; "Like a magic wand" ; When the body speaks ; Bridging body and mind in Nepal ; The dignity of risk -- Conclusion: On the spectrum.

Subject Term:

Mental illness -- History.

Mentally ill -- History.

Stereotypes (Social psychology) -- History.

Format:

Books

Publication Date:

2021

Language:

English

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Location
Searching... Fairfield Area Library	Book	38674121799728	616.89 GRINKER	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Twin Hickory Library	Book	38674121799710	616.89 GRINKER	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

For centuries, scientists and society cast moral judgments on anyone deemed mentally ill, confining many to asylums. In Nobody's Normal, anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker chronicles the progress and setbacks in the struggle against mental-illness stigma--from the eighteenth century, through America's major wars, and into today's high-tech economy.

Nobody's Normal argues that stigma is a social process that can be explained through cultural history, a process that began the moment we defined mental illness, that we learn from within our communities, and that we ultimately have the power to change. Though the legacies of shame and secrecy are still with us today, Grinker writes that we are at the cusp of ending the marginalization of the mentally ill. In the twenty-first century, mental illnesses are fast becoming a more accepted and visible part of human diversity.

Grinker infuses the book with the personal history of his family's four generations of involvement in psychiatry, including his grandfather's analysis with Sigmund Freud, his own daughter's experience with autism, and culminating in his research on neurodiversity. Drawing on cutting-edge science, historical archives, and cross-cultural research in Africa and Asia, Grinker takes readers on an international journey to discover the origins of, and variances in, our cultural response to neurodiversity.

Urgent, eye-opening, and ultimately hopeful, Nobody's Normal explains how we are transforming mental illness and offers a path to end the shadow of stigma.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Grinker (Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism), an anthropology professor at George Mason University, examines modern ideas around mental illness in this impactful book. He proposes that "mental illness and stigma were born together" of capitalism, under which the mentally ill were understood in opposition to the "ideal modern worker." As a result, up until WWI, the insane were considered unfit for society; the war, however, exposed the general population to the idea that even brave men could be diagnosed with problems such as shell shock or neurasthenia. Grinker then looks at the development of medical means for treating mental illness over the 20th century, resulting in both effective and ineffective measures, such as, respectively, electroconvulsive therapy and lobotomies. He also includes some family history--his grandfather was psychoanalyzed by Freud and later became a famous psychoanalyst himself. Readers sympathetic to Grinker's concern for the mentally ill will find an enlightening brief for the positions that "both normality and abnormality are fictional lands" and that the idea of a mental health spectrum leads to more humane care than strictly drawn divisions between the mentally healthy and unhealthy. This book will fascinate anyone drawn to the subjects of mental illness, psychology, and psychiatry. (Jan.)

Kirkus Review

A broad-ranging history of psychiatry, examining trends in how mental diseases are increasingly less stigmatized as we acknowledge that so often "the sufferer is innocent." Even today, English offers a rich lexicon of stigmatizing terms in the semantic domain of mental illness--one bit of evidence, writes cultural anthropologist Grinker, that "stigma isn't in our biology; it's in our culture." Given its cultural locus, we can alter our behavior to use less alienating language, and, as the author illustrates, in some instances we have, especially regarding other illnesses. As we learned about HIV/AIDS, for example, "the fear and secretiveness…began to decrease," even as obituaries now acknowledge the once-whispered term cancer and even suicide. Grinker, a professor of anthropology and international affairs, comes from a long line of psychiatrists and was brought up to believe that everyone suffers from some sort of mental illness at some point in life. Given its universality, the "discredited identity" that often accompanies mental illness is misplaced. The author offers an agile history of mental health and efforts to control it. For example, the Puritans of New England "believed that anyone without reason" needed to be controlled as if an animal, a category that included not just the mentally ill, but also babies. It was not until the 19th century that the realization became widespread that the mentally ill could be treated rather than merely punished. Interestingly, Grinker observes in his anecdotally rich narrative, many advances in psychiatric treatment came by way of military medicine, with so many soldiers shattered by the horrors of conflict. Indeed, it was the U.S. Army's medical manual for mental disorders that formed the basis of the first DSM in 1952, a volume that represented "a marriage of military experience and psychoanalytical theory." A highly readable, thoughtful study of how we perceive and talk about mental illness--with luck, ever more respectfully. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Anthropologist Grinker accomplishes a nifty literary trick with this thoughtful study of the history of stigmatizing mental illness. As the direct descendant of three generations of psychiatrists and as someone who studies mental health, he writes, accordingly, with expected pathos and intelligence on the subject. The surprise is the degree to which this thoroughly researched narrative is so engrossing and, indeed, even enthralling as Grinker shares both the history of treating the mentally ill (the word hysteria comes up) and his own personal travels around the world witnessing the societal acceptance or estrangement of those afflicted by mental disorders. By occasionally injecting stories of his forebears into his account, he grounds his story in the personal, but there is so much more here (his coverage of the Kellogg brothers alone is startling), including how economics, military prowess, gender bias, and racism became embedded in medical treatment decisions. The author's dedication to his subject is clear, and his smartly crafted prose sings as he writes of dark and disturbing medical choices. A superb and important work of nonfiction.

Library Journal Review

With the eye of an anthropologist and a family legacy of psychiatry, Grinker explores how the contemporary United States came to its current understanding of mental illness and what is considered "normal." The words we use and the structures we impose have changed throughout time and place, and stigma surrounding mental illness varies widely and evolves as doctors change the terms they use. While stigma around mental illness has decreased in some ways over the past decades, Grinker makes a provocative case that we still suffer from a mid-century invention of "normal," and that we assume pathologies as a way of explaining physical manifestation of symptoms rather than accepting that mental health and our lived experience affect our overall health. While the content and arguments are illuminating, Grinker's framing device adds useful drama and context. As he describes the experiences of his great-grandfather and grandfather in early psychoanalysis and psychology of soldiers, he highlights the history of psychology in the 20th century, as well as explicating a complicated family relationship (down to his daughter who has autism) that mirrors overall social trends. VERDICT An excellent overview for those interested in medical history or psychology, and also of interest to memoir and family history readers.--Margaret Heller, Loyola Univ. Chicago Libs.

Introduction The Road Out of Bedlam	p. xiii
Part 1 Capitalism
Chapter 1 Every Man for Himself	p. 3
Chapter 2 The Invention of Mental Illness	p. 24
Chapter 3 The Divided Body	p. 38
Chapter 4 The Divided Mind	p. 55
Part 2 Wars
Chapter 5 The Fates of War	p. 71
Chapter 6 Finding Freud	p. 90
Chapter 7 War Is Kind	p. 104
Chapter 8 Norma and Normman	p. 124
Chapter 9 From the Forgotten War to Vietnam	p. 141
Chapter 10 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder	p. 155
Chapter 11 Expectations of Sickness	p. 171
Part 3 Body and Mind
Chapter 12 Telling Secrets	p. 189
Chapter 13 An Illness Like Any Other?	p. 213
Chapter 14 "Like a Magic Wand"	p. 236
Chapter 15 When the Body Speaks	p. 260
Chapter 16 Bridging Body and Mind in Nepal	p. 275
Chapter 17 The Dignity of Risk	p. 292
Conclusion: On the Spectrum	p. 319
Acknowledgments	p. 331
Notes	p. 335
Index	p. 383

Available:*

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents