“The landmark book that argued that psychiatry consistently expands its definition of mental illness to impose its authority over moral and cultural conflict.” — New York Times The 50th anniversary edition of the most influential critique of psychiatry every written, with a new preface on the age of Prozac and Ritalin and the rise of designer drugs, plus two bonus essays. Thomas Szasz's classic book revolutionized thinking about the nature of the psychiatric profession and the moral implications of its practices. By diagnosing unwanted behavior as mental illness, psychiatrists, Szasz argues, absolve individuals of responsibility for their actions and instead blame their alleged illness. He also critiques Freudian psychology as a pseudoscience and warns against the dangerous overreach of psychiatry into all aspects of modern life.

Bringing together treatment and referral advice from existing guidelines, this text aims to improve access to services and recognition of common mental health disorders in adults and provide advice on the principles that need to be adopted to develop appropriate referral and local care pathways.

This readable text presents the long-awaited first comprehensive history of the Royal College of Psychiatrists as an organisation, from its creation as the Association of Medical Officers of Asylums and Hospitals for the Insane in 1841, its development through various name changes and the receipt of two charters, to become the present Royal College as we know it today. As a former President of the College from 1984-7, Dr Bewley also gives an overview of the fascinating developments in British psychiatry and its sub-specialties over the past two centuries. Further, more specific activities are also detailed, such as the formation of the research unit, the College publishing programme of journals and books, and the growth in facilities now provided including the library and information service. The book contains a collection of photographs in a glossy centre section.

In the 1840s novelists such as Brontë and Dickens began to explore the inner world of the child. Simultaneously the first psychiatric studies of childhood were appearing. Moving between literature and science, Sally Shuttleworth explores issues such as childhood fears, imaginary lands, sexuality, and the relation of the child to animal life.