Rachel Louise Moran

Madness and Mental Health in US History

Dr. Rachel Louise Moran
Wooten Hall 248
Office hours: T/Th 11-12

Course Description

What does it mean to be mad? What does it mean to be sane? While some concept of “madness” can be found all the way from the ancient world to the present, the actual meaning of madness depends on historical context. In this course, we focus on both the meaning of madness and its contexts. We ask who has defined sanity and insanity at certain times and in certain places, and what criteria has been used. The course broadly examines the history of madness and mental illness in the U.S. between the 18th and 21st centuries. We ask how the fields of psychology, psychoanalysis and psychiatry have developed and changed, and how they have changed the world around them. We think through intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and think about how social power influenced diagnosis and treatment. 

Required Texts

  • Andrew Scull, Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry’s Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness
  • Readings on Canvas 

Assignments and Grades

Prep assignments (3 questions and a fascinating bit or a concept map) – 12 x 30 points each = 360

(There are 14 offered, so you can skip 2 with no penalty. 4 bonus points for any over the required 12) 

Exits – 23 x 10 points each = 230

(there are 27 offered, so you can miss 4 with no penalty. 2 bonus points for any over the required 23)

Film paper (paper, appx. 1000 words, analyzing a film on mental illness or madness from a pre-approved list – assignment sheet to follow) – 200 points

Memoir paper (paper, appx. 1000 words, analyzing a memoir on mental illness or madness from a pre-   approved list – assignment sheet to follow) – 210 points

Honors section – additional research assignment due during finals week – see separate syllabus

——-

= 1000 points total

Grading Scale (900+ = A; 800-899 = B; 700-799 = C, 600-699 = D, Under 500 = F)

Accessibility   

The University of North Texas makes reasonable academic accommodation for students with disabilities. Students seeking reasonable accommodation must first register with the Office of Disability Access (ODA) to verify their eligibility. If a disability is verified, the ODA will provide you with a reasonable accommodation letter to be delivered to faculty to begin a private discussion regarding your specific needs in a course. You may request reasonable accommodations at any time, however, ODA notices of reasonable accommodation should be provided as early as possible in the semester to avoid any delay in implementation. Note that students must obtain a new letter of reasonable accommodation for every semester and must meet with each faculty member prior to implementation in each class. Students are strongly encouraged to deliver letters of reasonable accommodation during faculty office hours or by appointment. Faculty members have the authority to ask students to discuss such letters during their designated office hours to protect the privacy of the student. For additional information see the Office of Disability Access website at http://www.unt.edu/oda. You may also contact them by phone at 940.565.4323.  

Formal statement aside, though: Seriously – let me know what you need to make the course work for you, even if you do not yet have formal documentation. The course includes some disability studies, and is meant to be as accessible as possible. That said, accessibility sometimes requires extra effort on my end (whether you need things captioned, in larger print, extensions), so I need to know what you need ahead of time.  

Dean of Students

If serious illness or injury, death or illness in the family, mental health matters, economic instability, pregnancy and/or parenting, legal matters, etc. are interfering in your academic success, you may want to speak with someone at the Dean of Students’ office. http://deanofstudents.unt.edu

Week 1 – What is Madness? What is Sanity?

Tues, Aug 22

  • In class: 
    • Syllabus and introduction, policies and purpose of policies

Thurs, Aug 24

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “Preface” (DR)
    • Read Jonathan Sadowsky, “Depression is a Thing,” from The Empire of Depression (2021) (Canvas)
  • In Class:
    • Discussion of readings, grounding concepts of course

Week 2 – Madness in the Colonies

Tues, August 29

  • Before class:
    • Read Gerald Grob, “Caring for the Insane in Colonial America” (Canvas)
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or a concept map (on Canvas, by Tuesday at 11am) – Prep #1
  • In class:
    • Exit 1

Thurs, August 31

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “Mausoleums of the Mad” (DR Chapter 1)
  • In class:
    • Read Dorothea Dix, Memorial to the Legislature of Massachusetts. Boston: Munroe & Francis, 1843
    • Exit 2

Week 3 – The Asylum 

Tues, Sept 5

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “Disposing of Degenerates” (DR Chapter 2)
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or concept map (on Canvas, by Tuesday at 11am) – Prep #2
  • In class:
    • Read excerpt from Samuel Cartwright, “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race,” 1851
    • Read excerpt from E. M. Green, “Psychoses among Negroes—A comparative study,” 1914
    • Exit 3

Thurs, Sept 7

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “Psychobiology” (DR Chapter 3)
  • In class:
    • View and discuss Rise and Fall of the Asylum (53 min)
    • Exit 4

Week 4 – Nerves and Gender

Tues, Sept 12

  • Before class:
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or concept map (on Canvas, by Tuesday at 11am) – Prep #3
  • In class:
    • Exit 5

Thurs, Sept 14

  • Before class:
    • Read: Laura Briggs, “The Race of Hysteria: “Overcivilization” and the “Savage” Woman in Late Nineteenth-Century Obstetrics and Gynecology” (Canvas)
  • In class:
    • Read “An Extraordinary case of Female Frenzy” (1876)
    • Read “Hysteria: A Malady” (1887)
    • Read “How Hysteria May be Cured” (1889)
    • Read “Brain Building: How to Feed Nervous Cases,” American Motherhood (1903)
    • Exit 6

Week 5 – Freud

Tues, Sept 19

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “Freud visits America” (DR Chapter 4)
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or a concept map (on Canvas, by Tuesday at 11am) – Prep #4
  • In class:
    • Discuss paper 1 Assignment (Film paper)
    • Read selection from Sigmund Freud, “The Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis” (1910)
    • Watch “Hysterical Girl” (13 min, 2020). 
    • Exit 7

Thurs, Sept 21

  • Before class: Scull, “The Germ of Madness” (DR Chapter 5)
  • In class:
    • Adolf Meyer, “Forward,” to Henry Cotton, The Relation of Focal Infections to their Causation, Treatment, and Prevention 
    • Henry Cotton, Case Studies, from The Relation of Focal Infections to their Causation, Treatment, and Prevention
    • Exit 8

Week 6 – Body and Mind

Tues, Sept 26

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “Body and Mind” (DR Chapter 6)
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or a concept map (on Canvas, by Monday at midnight) – Prep #5
  • In class:
    • View and discuss Evil or Illness (53 min)
    • Exit 9

Thurs, Sept 28

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “Shocking the Brain” (DR Chapter 7) and Scull “The Checkered Career of Electroconvulsive Therapy” (DR Chapter 8)
  • In class:
    • ECT controversies 
    • Exit 10

Week 7 – War and Eugenics

Tues, Oct 3

  • Before class:
    • Read Tracey Loughran, “Shell Shock, Trauma, and the First World War: The Making of a Diagnosis and Its Histories” (Canvas) 
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or a concept map (on Canvas, by Monday at midnight) – Prep #6
  • In class: 
    • Discuss Paper 2/Memoir paper (instructions)
    • WWI films (NLM), discussion of reading and film clips
    • Exit 11

Thurs, Oct 5

  • Before class:
    • Submit paper 1 (film paper) on Canvas by class time (by 11am Thurs)
    • Read James Trent, “Idiots in America,” from Inventing the Feeble Mind
  • In Class:
    • A.F. Tredgold, “The feeble-minded-a social danger” Eugen Rev. 1909
    • Read Buck v Bell decision (US 1927)
    • Exit 12

Week 8 – Lobotomy

Tues, Oct 10

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “Brain Surgery” (DR Chapter 9) and “Selling Psychosurgery” (DR Chapter 10)
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or a concept map (on Canvas, by Monday at midnight) – Prep #7
  • In class: 
    • Images from Albert Q. Maisel, “Bedlam 1946,” Life Magazine May 6, 1946
    • Exit 13

Thurs, Oct 12

  • Before class:
    • Read: Scull, “The End of the Affair” (DR Chapter 11)
  • In class:
    • The Lobotomist
    • Exit 14

Week 9 – Changes Afoot 

Tues, Oct 17

  • Before class: 
    • Read Scull, “Talk Therapy” (DR Chapter 13)
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or a concept map (on Canvas, by Monday at midnight) – Prep #8
  • In class: 
    • Excerpt from Theodore Dreiser, “Neurotic America and the Sex Impulse”(1915)
    • Exit 15

Thurs, Oct 19

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “War” (DR Chapter 14)
  • In class:
    • Let There be Light (1946) and discuss
    • Exit 16

Week 10 – WWII and the DSM

Tues, Oct 24

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “Professional Transformations” (DR Chapter 15)
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or a concept map (on Canvas, by Monday at midnight) – Prep #9
  • In class: 
    • Excerpt from Edward Strecker, “What’s Wrong with American Mothers?” Saturday Evening Post, October 1946
    • Excerpt from Dr. Spock, 1955
    • Final Prompt 17

Thurs, Oct 26

  • Before Class:
    • Read Scull, “A Fragile Hegemony” (DR Chapter 16)
  • In class:
    • Who’s Normal (53 min)
    • Exit 18

Week 11 – Psychiatric Revolutions

Tues, Oct 31

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “The Birth of Psychopharmacology” (DR Chapter 17)
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or a concept map (on Canvas, by Monday at midnight) – Prep #10
  • In class: 
    • Psychiatric medication ads
    • Exit 19

Thurs, Nov 2

  • Before Class:
    • Read Judith Warner, “Psychiatry Confronts Its Racist Past, and Tries to Make Amends,” New York Times 2021
  • In class:
    • Walter Bromberg and Franck Simon, “The ‘Protest’ Psychosis: A Special Type of Reactive Psychosis,” Archives of General Psychiatry, August 1968
    • Exit 20

Week 12 – Psychiatry at a Crossroads

Tues, Nov 7

  • NO CLASS
    • Read Scull, Chapter 18, “Community Care” (DR)
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or a concept map (on Canvas, by Monday at midnight) – Prep #11
  • In lieu of class:
    • Read David Rosenhan, “On Being Sane in Insane Places,” Science, 1973
    • Exit 21 – discussion board about Rosenhan online

Thurs, Nov 9

  • NO CLASS – In lieu of class:
    • Work on memoir projects – reading/writing day

Week 13 – Medication and Deinstitutionalization

Tues, Nov 14

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “Diagnosing Mental Illness”(DR 19)
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or concept map (on Canvas, by Monday at midnight) – Prep #12
  • In class: 
    • “000-63 Sexual Deviation,” DSM 1952 p. 38-39
    • “302 Sexual Deviations,” DSM-II 1968, p. 44
    • “302.00 Ego-dystonic Homosexuality,” DSM-III 1980, p. 281.
    • Exit #22

Thurs, Nov 16

Thanksgiving Break

Week 14 – Changes in Psychiatry

Tues, Nov 28

  • Before class:
    • Read “The Complexities of Psychopharmacology” (DR 20)
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or concept map (on Canvas, by Monday at midnight) – Prep #13
  • In class:
    • Excerpt from Peter Kramer, Listening to Prozac
    • Exit #24

Thurs, Nov 30

  • Before class:
    • Read Scull, “Genetics, Neuroscience, and Mental Illness” (DR 21)
  • In class:
    • New Frontiers (53 min)
    • Exit #25

Week 15 – Toward Psychiatry Today

Tues, Dec 5

  • Before class:
    • Read: Scull, “The Crisis of Contemporary Psychiatry” (DR 22)
    • Submit three questions and one fascinating bit or concept map (on Canvas, by Monday at midnight) – Prep #14
  • In class
    • Exit #26

Thurs, Dec 7

  • Before Class
    • Read Scull, “Epilogue: Does Psychiatry Have a Future?”
  • In class
    • Exit #27