Collection

Classic Psychiatry

A chronological path through asylum reform, melancholia, hysteria, degeneration, schizophrenia, psychoanalysis, psychology, and the older medical languages that shaped psychiatry.

Hippocratic WritingsHippocratesOn the Sacred Disease 1–2: The writer rejects divine special status for epilepsy and argues that it has a natural cause like other diseases.c. 5th–4th century BCE · High relevance The Anatomy of MelancholyRobert BurtonDemocritus Junior to the Reader: Burton's confession of melancholy, his account of writing as occupation against it, and the satirical argument that the whole world is mad.1621 · High relevance A Treatise on InsanityPhilippe PinelIntroduction and Ch. 1: Pinel frames mental alienation as a medical subject requiring observation, classification, and reform of custodial habits.1801 (Davis trans. 1806) · High relevance Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the MindBenjamin RushOpening chapters on causes and seats of mental disease: Rush links mental disorder to bodily and brain processes, marking a medicalizing account of mind.1812 · High relevance Description of the RetreatSamuel TukeChs. 2-3: The institutional description makes architecture, air, garden access, and household order central to care.1813 · High relevance Mental MaladiesJean-Etienne Dominique EsquirolHallucinations and illusions: Esquirol distinguishes false perception from false judgment and makes hallucination a key psychiatric sign.1838 (Hunt trans. 1845) · High relevance Mental Pathology and TherapeuticsWilhelm GriesingerBook I: Griesinger argues that mental diseases must be understood as diseases of the brain, while admitting the limits of pathology.1845 (English trans. 1867) · High relevance Body and MindHenry MaudsleyLecture I: Maudsley argues that mind must be studied through bodily organization and nervous function.1870 · High relevance Lectures on the Diseases of the Nervous SystemJean-Martin CharcotNeurological lectures: The lectures use clinical signs, lesion localization, and pathology to classify disorders of movement and sensation.1872-1887 (English lectures 1877-1881) · High relevance Psychopathia SexualisRichard von Krafft-EbingMedico-forensic introduction: Krafft-Ebing presents sexuality as an object of psychiatric and legal expertise.1886 (Rebman English adaptation 1906) · High relevance The Principles of PsychologyWilliam JamesVol. I, Chapter II: The Functions of the Brain: Motor and sensory aphasia, cerebral localisation, lesion studies and the cases in which patients recognise and suffer from their speech errors.1890 · High relevance Studies on HysteriaJosef Breuer and Sigmund FreudPreliminary communication: The opening essay links symptoms to memory, affect, trauma, and altered states of consciousness.1895 (Brill English translation 1936/1937) · High relevance The Interpretation of DreamsSigmund FreudChapter I: Survey of external, internal sensory and organic stimuli as causes of dreams, including experiments on sleepers and the views of physicians and psychiatrists on dreams and insanity.1899 (dated 1900) · High relevance The Varieties of Religious ExperienceWilliam JamesLecture I: Religion and Neurology: Critique of medical materialism; acknowledgement that religious leaders often show nervous instability, and the argument that origin does not determine value.1902 · High relevance Lectures on Clinical PsychiatryEmil KraepelinClinical demonstrations: Kraepelin models diagnosis as observation of patient presentation joined to disease course and prognosis.1904 English translation · High relevance The Major Symptoms of HysteriaPierre JanetLectures I-II: Janet defines hysteria through psychological dissociation and lowered integrative capacity.1907 · High relevance The Psychology of Dementia PraecoxC. G. JungAssociation experiment chapters: Jung uses reaction times and verbal responses to infer affective complexes.1907 (Peterson/Brill trans. 1909) · High relevance Dementia Praecox or the Group of SchizophreniasEugen BleulerOpening conceptual chapters: Bleuler revises dementia praecox and introduces schizophrenia as a group concept.1911 (English trans. 1950) · High relevance Man's Search for MeaningViktor E. FranklPart One, first phase: Admission to Auschwitz: the selection, shaving and disinfection, the delusion of reprieve, and the first emotional reactions, including grim humour and curiosity.1946 (German, as Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager); English trans. Ilse Lasch 1959; enlarged 1962 · High relevance