“Shattered Nerves” (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Janet Oppenheim
- First Published: 1991
- Type of Work: Psychology and history
- Time of Work: The 1830’s-1914
- Setting: England
- Principal Characters: James Crichton-Browne, Charles Darwin, Henry Maudsley, John Stuart Mill
- Genres: Nonfiction, History, Psychology
- Subjects: Culture, Sex or sexuality, Gender roles, Class consciousness, Mental illness, Depression, mental, Industry, Psychiatry or psychiatrists, Victorian era or Victorianism, Opium, Urbanization
- Locales: England
Victorians who suffered from severe depression received little help from the British medical profession. In “Shattered Nerves,” Janet Oppenheim traces the efforts of British physicians to understand depression and to develop appropriate therapies. Their attempts to do so were based on assumptions about the relationship between mind and body that often hampered understanding of mental illness. Their perception of the causes of mental illness was also shaped and often distorted by Victorian gender ideologies and class attitudes. Although the focus of Oppenheim’s book is on...
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