Mental Health in History: Psychiatry and Anti-Psychiatry

How did the World Wars shape the practice of psychiatry and the larger mental health field? And how has psychiatric discourse in turn changed how we think about the self? What constitutes mental illness? Who gets to define it and how it should be treated?

In this episode of “Meeting Street,” performance studies scholar Leon Hilton and historian Jennifer Lambe join host Amanda Anderson for a conversation exploring the development of contemporary psychiatry, the role of reformist movements within the field, how gay rights activism and disability justice have challenged our understanding of mental illness and the domain of psychiatry, and the ways in which historical and cultural contexts can inform ongoing scientific study of the mind.