HIST 190-5 Madness in America: From Lunacy to Mass Incarceration
Course co-ordinator Dr Kylie M Smith PhD Assistant Professor Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellow for Nursing & the Humanities Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing E: [email protected] T: 404.727.2504 Room 354 in the School of Nursing Office hours Friday 10-12 or by appointment
Class time Tues and Thursday 2.30 to 3.45pm Woodruff 773
HIST190-5: Madness in America
Course overview
More than 1 in 4 Americans will be diagnosed with some kind of mental illness in their life, yet mental illness remains one of the most stigmatised and underfunded medical conditions. In this course we will explore the historical circumstances that have led to the development of current issues in mental health, and ask critical questions about the nature of mental illness itself. We will use a social history approach to understand the experience and construction of “the patient” through the intersection of culture, politics and law.
We will explore the tension between ideas of care and control, which were highlighted by the anti-psychiatry movement and the portrayal of asylums in popular culture. These tensions were overlaid in the US with a racial divide and segregated approaches to care, which have continued to impact the way in which services are provided today, particularly in the South. Through an examination of the way that laws have changed, we will seek to question the ethics of imprisonment of the mentally ill and to understand the complicated relationship between mental illness and criminality.
Our goal in this course is to understand how historical attitudes shape the development and provision of services today, and how we can be more attuned to the embedded injustice in biomedical approaches to mental health care.
Learning Objectives
Understand the impact of historical attitudes and decisions on the development of treatment approaches and policy around mental illness.
Analyze the political and legal contexts of mental illness for American citizenship.
Develop skills in using and analyzing a range of evidence from a variety of historical sources.
Texts
Grob, G. (1994) The Mad Among Us: A History of the Care of America’s Mentally Ill. The Fress Press, NY.
Metzl, J. (2009) The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease, Beacon Press, Boston.
Other recommended texts and weekly readings as per syllabus and available via course reserves.
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Assessments
1. Mid term paper: Whose voice? Analysis and critique of sources and methods for psychiatric history 20% 2. Final paper: Analysis of historical policy or practice and implications for current issues in mental health 40% 3. Oral presentation: Short in class presentation raising issues from the readings 10% 4. Canvas postings in answer to specific questions (throughout) 25% 5. Attendance, participation (throughout)5%
More detail on each assessment with rubrics will be available on Canvas throughout the course.
Assignment expectations: All written assignments are graded based on content, prose, and structure. Papers with frequent grammatical and spelling errors will be marked down (regardless of content) as grammar and style make up a key category in our rubric. The paper must be double spaced with a 1” margin and in 12-point common font such as Times New Roman, Calibri or Arial and a common file format. No PDFs will be accepted (write your essays in Word).
Assignments must be turned in on the day and time indicated on this syllabus. Late submissions will be marked down by a third of a grade per day late. For example, if you have written a B paper, you will receive a B- if you have turned it in one day late, a C+ for two days late, etc.
Grading: You will be provided with rubrics for your discussion comment and essay assignments. A running tally of your grade will be available in the Canvas gradebook for this class.
Grading Scale
A 100-94 A- 93-90 B+ 89-87 B 86-83 B- 80-82 C+ 79-76 C 75-73 C- 72-70 D+ 69-67 D 66-64 F 63 or lower
If you have concerns about a grade, I ask you to explain those in an email to me. The email should articulate why you think your grade was not adequate.
Course Policies
Classroom policies: You may not use iPads and computer notebooks during the lectures (the lectures slides will be posted to Canvas) unless you have a Reasonable Accomodation which you should discuss with me. Please utilize pen and paper for note taking instead. Your smart phone needs to remain in your bag at all times.
Students are expected to arrive on time, attend class regularly, complete the readings before class meetings, and come prepared to discuss the material. Unexcused absences will negatively
3 HIST190-5: Madness in America affect the participation grade as attendance is one of its major components. An excused absence (including illness, family emergency, or university event) will not negatively impact your professionalism grade; however, you need to inform me of your absence in advance of the class meeting and explain why your absence was unavoidable. If you have missed a class, it is your responsibility to catch up on the material covered during that meeting.
The Honor Code is in effect throughout the semester. By taking this course, you affirm that it is a violation of the code to cheat on exams, to plagiarize, to deviate from the teacher's instructions about collaboration on work that is submitted for grades, to give false information to a faculty member, and to undertake any other form of academic misconduct. You agree that the instructor is entitled to move you to another seat during examinations, without explanation. You also affirm that if you witness others violating the code you have a duty to report them to the honor council. Students who violate the Honor Code may be subject to a written mark on their record, failure of the course, suspension, permanent dismissal, or a combination of these and other sanctions. The Honor Code may be reviewed at: http://catalog.college.emory.edu/academic/policies- regulations/honor-code.html
Netiquette & Discussion Expectations: Good collegial relations are expected in this class. Meaning, of course, that we should all behave with respect and courtesy in online communications. You are expected to use appropriate language and proper grammar in your discussion thread posts and avoid “expropriating” others’ work (see the note on plagiarism below)! Respectful communication promotes intellectual exchange and learning. Simply because someone challenges your interpretations is no reason to take offense—challenging one’s interpretations is the core mechanism of scholarly progress. “Flaming” is forbidden and the use of memes, emoticons, etc. will be deemed unprofessional. Similarly, in classroom discussions avoid inflammatory language and ad hominem attacks. Professionalism matters in class and in general, so try to comport yourself on line and in class as you would in a professional setting. For those needing guidelines on netiquette, please refer to https://www.education.com/reference/article/netiquette-rules-behavior-internet/ Note on plagiarism: All work in the class should be your own and plagiarism from the web (including cutting and pasting of other’s text, but also failure to cite others’ arguments), use of others’ papers, discussion comments, etc., will lead to an honor council referral. Canvas is equipped with plagiarism software and it will be turned on for the class. For an explanation of what constitutes plagiarism, please consult the History Department’s How To Write A Good History Paper page or the Woodruff Library’s “I need help in citing or using sources” page.
Help and Support: Please feel free to contact me as soon as possible if you think you will have problems with the expectations of this course or if things happen that will affect your participation and capabilities. I am very happy to work out reasonable adjustments but it is always better to do this as far in advance as possible. Asking for extensions the day before an assignment is due with no verifiable extenuating circumstances will lead to disappointment.
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Schedule of Topics at a Glance
Date Topic Assignments INTRODUCTION Tues 1/15 Welcome and organization Thurs 1/17 What is “mental illness”? Sign up for presentation topics on Canvas MODULE 1: Places and Practices Tues 1/22 Asylums, attendants and alienists Thurs 1/24 Tues 1/29 Segregation & Psychiatry Thurs 1/31 Canvas posting Tues 2/5 Psychiatric Technologies Thurs 2/7 Tues 2/12 ARCHIVES Thurs 2/14 ARCHIVES Canvas Posting Tues 2/19 No class/NARA visit Thurs 2/21 No class/NARA visit Friday 2/23 PAPER 1 DUE MODULE 2: Politics and Protest Tues 2/26 War & Social Psychiatry Thurs 2/28 Tues 3/5 Delinquency & Deprivation Thurs 3/7 Canvas posting Tues 3/12 SPRING BREAK Thurs 3/14 SPRING BREAK Tues 3/19 Pathologizing Protest Thurs 3/21 Tues 3/26 Exposes & Antipsychiatry Thurs 3/28 Canvas Posting MODULE 3: Patients as Prisoners Tues 4/2 Civil Rights & Patients Rights Thurs 4/4 Tues 4/9 Community mental health to mass incarceration Thurs 4/11 Tues 4/16 Mental illness as a crime Thurs 4/18 Canvas Posting Tues 4/23 No Class: writing consults Thurs 4/25 No Class: writing consults Friday May 3 FINAL PAPER DUE
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Detailed Schedule of Topics with Readings
The material in this course is organized through modules which are thematic and also loosely chronological. After the introductory week, each module consists of 3-4 weeks, with associated readings and activities. As much as possible, each week will use a mix of PRIMARY and a SECONDARY sources, and you will need to read both. The main reading for each class is listed next to the relevant date, and will be available on Canvas or Course Reserves. The ‘Recommended Readings’ are extra resources for you to draw on for your presentations or papers.
Introduction This week we will discuss the approach we are going to take towards a critical understanding of mental health in American history and consider some of the definitions and concepts that we will need to unpack.
January 17
Roberts, Marc. "The production of the psychiatric subject: power, knowledge and Michel Foucault." Nursing Philosophy 6, no. 1 (2005): 33-42.
Recommended: Holmes, Dave. "From iron gaze to nursing care: mental health nursing in the era of panopticism." Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 8, no. 1 (2001): 7-15.
Perron, Amelie, Trudy Rudge, and Dave Holmes. "Citizen minds, citizen bodies: the citizenship experience and the government of mentally ill persons." Nursing Philosophy 11, no. 2 (2010): 100-111.
Module 1: Places and Practices This module explores the ways that people with mental illness have been housed and treated, and looks at some of the ideas that influenced early psychiatry. The main reading for this module is Grob (1994) Chapters 1 to 6 and you should aim to have read all of these chapters by the end of the module. Specific readings are set out below.
For January 22: Asylums, Attendants and Alienists
Grob, G. (1994) The Mad Among Us: A History of the Care of America’s Mentally Ill. The Free Press. Chapter 1-4 (pages 1-102)
Rush, Benjamin (1812) Medical Inquiries and Observations Upon Diseases of the Mind https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-2569036R-bk (any section of this that interests you)
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Recommended: Tomes, Nancy (1994) The art of asylum-keeping: Thomas Story Kirkbride and the origins of American psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
Dix, Dorothea Lynde. Memorial soliciting adequate appropriations for the construction of a state hospital for the insane in the state of Mississippi, February 1850. Jackson, Miss., 1850. 21pp. Available online through Emory Library.
For January 29: Segregation and Psychiatry
Gambino, M. (2008). These strangers within our gates': race, psychiatry and mental illness among black Americans at St Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC, 1900— 40. History of psychiatry, 19(4), 387-408.
Gilman, S. (1985). Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race and Madness. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. Chapter 5: On the Nexus of Blackness and Madness. P131-149.
Jarvis, Edward. (1844) Insanity among the colored population of the Free States: Am. J. Med. Sci., 7: 74.
Green, E. M. (1914) "Psychoses among Negroes—A comparative study." The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 41, no. 11 (1914): 697-708.
Bevis, W. M. (1921). Psychological traits of the Southern Negro with observations as to some of his psychoses. American Journal of Psychiatry, 78(1), 69-78.
Recommended: Hoberman, J. (2012). Black and blue: The origins and consequences of medical racism. Univ of California Press. CHAPTER 4 “Medical Apartheid, Internal Colonialism, and the Task of American Psychiatry” pp123-163. Available as an EBook through Emory library.
Summers, Martin. " "Suitable Care of the African When Afflicted With Insanity": Race, Madness, and Social Order in Comparative Perspective." Bulletin of the History of Medicine (2010): 58-91.
Postell, William Dosite. "Mental health among the slave population on southern plantations." American Journal of Psychiatry 110, no. 1 (1953): 52-54.
For February 5: Psychiatric Technologies
Grob, G (1994). The Mad Among Us, Chapters 5 &6 pp103-164
Sadowsky, J. (2016). Electroconvulsive Therapy in America: The Anatomy of a Medical Controversy. Routledge. Chapter 1: Origins and Origin Myths pp19-38
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Recommended: Braslow, J. (1997). Mental ills and bodily cures: psychiatric treatment in the first half of the twentieth century (Vol. 8). Univ of California Press.
Hirshbein, L. D. (2009). American melancholy: Constructions of depression in the twentieth century. Rutgers University Press.
Sadowsky, J. (2005). Beyond the metaphor of the pendulum: electroconvulsive therapy, psychoanalysis, and the styles of American psychiatry. Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences, 61(1), 1-25.
Sadowsky, J. (2009). Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 83(4), 797-798.
Module 2: Politics and Protest This module shifts our focus on what was ‘done’ in relation to psychiatry to the politics of mental health. Two World Wars and the rise of a ‘protest’ culture heavily influenced the importance of mental health which increasingly became a social problem. This module looks beyond the surface of ‘treatment’ and ‘care’ to unpack some of the origins of disparities and the racial and gendered aspects of psychiatric diagnoses. The Grob book is still useful for this module and you should read up to Chapter 9 over these few weeks. To fully understand the politics of race and psychiatry, read as much of the Metzl book “Protest Psychosis” as you can.
For February 26: War and Social Psychiatry
Grob, G. (1994) The Mad Among Us. Chapters 8-9 pp 191-248
Staub, M. (2011) Madness is Civilization: When the Diagnosis was Social 1948-1980. Chapter 1: Society as the Patient pp13-38.
“Are you always worrying?” Time. 10/25/1948, Vol. 52 Issue 17, p66.
Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, (1950) The Social Responsibility of Psychiatry: A Statement of Orientation, Report No. 13, July. Available online http://gap- dev.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/assets/000/000/162/original/reports_the_social_respo nsibi.pdf?1429591402
Recommended Menninger, W. C. (1948). Psychiatry in a troubled world; yesterday's war and today's challenge. MacMillan, NY.
Menninger, W. C. (1947). Psychiatric experience in the war, 1941-1946. American Journal of Psychiatry, 103(5), 577-586.
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Stevens, R. B. (1947). Racial aspects of emotional problems of Negro soldiers. American Journal of Psychiatry, 103(4), 493-498.
Dwyer, E. (2006). Psychiatry and race during World War II. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 61(2), 117-143.
Herman, E. (1995). The romance of American psychology: Political culture in the age of experts. Univ of California Press.
For March 5: Delinquency and Deprivation
Raz, M. (2013). What's wrong with the poor?: Psychiatry, race, and the war on poverty. UNC Press, Chapel Hill. Chapter 2: Cultural Deprivation? Race, deprivation and the nature-nurture debate. Pages 37-75
Halliwell. M. (2014) Therapeutic Revolutions: Medicine, Psychiatry and American Culture 1945-1970. Rutgers University Press, NJ. Chapter 6: Outside the Circle – Growing Pains, Delinquency and Sexuality, pp166-196.
Moynihan, D. (1965) The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, Office of Policy Planning and Research, United States Department of Labor (The Moynihan Report). Either Chapter 3 “The Roots of the Problem” or Chapter 4 “The Tangle of Pathology” https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Moynihan%27s%20The%20Negro%20Family.pdf
Recommended Scott, D.M. (1997) Contempt and Pity: Social Policy and the Image of the Damaged Black Psyche, UNC Press, Chapel Hill. Chapters 3 and 5 in particular.
Doyle, D. (2008). “A Fine New Child”: The Lafargue Mental Hygiene Clinic and Harlem's African American Communities, 1946–1958. Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences, 64(2), 173-212.
Doyle, D. A. (2016). Psychiatry and Racial Liberalism in Harlem, 1936-1968 (Vol. 36). Rochester University Press.
Creadick, A. G. (2010). Perfectly average: The pursuit of normality in postwar America. Univ of Massachusetts Press.
Weinstein, D. (2013). The pathological family: Postwar America and the rise of family therapy. Cornell University Press.
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For March 19: Pathologizing Protest
Metzl, J. M. (2009). The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease. Beacon Books, Boston. At least the Preface and Part IV: Caesar Williams.
Metzl, J. M. (2003). Prozac on the Couch: Prescribing Gender in the Era of Wonder Drugs. Duke University Press, NC. Introduction and Chapter 4: The Gendered Psychodynamics of Pharmaceutical Advertising.
Recommended Halliwell, M. (2013) Therapeutic Revolutions: Chapter 7: Institutions of Care and Oppression pages 199-230
Halliwell, M. (2018) Voices of Mental Health: Chapter 2: Wounds and Memories of War
For March 26: Exposes and Antipsychiatry
Szasz, T. S. (1960). The myth of mental illness. American psychologist, 15(2), 113.
Staub, M. (2011). Madness is Civilization: Chapter 4: The Therapeutic State.
Rosenhan, D. L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179(4070), 250-258.
Jack Nelson’s expose of Milledgeville via AJC archives (Rose Library, Emory).
Recommended Goffman, E. (1961) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, Anchor Books NY.
Szasz, T. (1974). The myth of mental illness. New York: Harper & Row.
Szasz, T. S. (1963). Law, liberty, and psychiatry: An inquiry into the social uses of mental health practices. Syracuse University Press.
Keasey, K. (1962). One flew over the cuckoo's nest. Penguin, 1962.
Module 3: Patients as Prisoners
In this module we will look at the intersection of mental health and the law. Major changes to the treatment and care of people with mental illness were brought about as a consequence of government action and civil litigation. These changes have had long term effects, not always positive, and have changed the ways that mental illness itself is defined. Our goal here is to understand how these changes affect people with mental illness and to examine the continued politics behind ‘mental health’.
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For April 2: Civil Rights and Patient’s Rights
Davis, P. (2011). Wyatt v. Stickney: Did we get it right this time. Law & Psychol. Rev., 35, 143.
Wyatt v Stickney: A Landmark Decision. Alabama Disability Advocacy Project Newsletter, July 2004. http://adap.ua.edu/uploads/5/7/8/9/57892141/2004_adap_news_july.pdf
CHOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING: Judgement in Marable v Alabama Mental Health Board 1969: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/297/291/2147439/
Order re minimum standards in Wyatt v Stickney 1972: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/344/387/2303861/
Judgement in JL v Parham 1976: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/412/112/2368317/
Recommended Drake, J. (1971). Enforcing the right to treatment: Wyatt v. Stickney. Am. Crim. L. Rev., 10, 587.
Drake, J. (1980). Judicial implementation and Wyatt v. Stickney. Ala. L. Rev., 32, 299.
Johnson Jr, F. M. (1980). The role of the federal courts in institutional litigation. Ala. L. Rev., 32, 271.
Perlin, M. L. (2011). Abandoned Love: The Impact of Wyatt v. Stickney On The Intersection Between International Human Rights And Domestic Mental Disability Law. Law & Psychol. Rev., 35, 121.
For April 9: Community Mental Health to Mass Incarceration
Grob (1994) The Mad Among Us: Chapter 10 “The New Frontier” pages249-278
Metzl, J.M (2009) The Protest Psychosis. “Part IV: Remnants” pages 175-212
Halliwell (2018) Voices of Mental Health. Chapter 8 “Mental Health at the Millennium”
Harcourt, B. E. (2011). Reducing mass incarceration: Lessons from the deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals in the 1960s. Ohio St. J. Crim. L., 9, 53.
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Recommended Boschma et al (2014). “These people known as mental patients” Professional and Patient Engagement in Community Mental Health in Vancouver, BC in the 1970s, Oral History Forum, Volume 34. Available online http://www.oralhistoryforum.ca/index.php/ohf/article/view/571/648
Grob, G. N. (2005). Public policy and mental illnesses: Jimmy Carter's presidential commission on mental health. The Milbank Quarterly, 83(3), 425-456.
Grob, G. N. (2014). From asylum to community: Mental health policy in modern America (Vol. 1217). Princeton University Press.
Frank, R. G., & Glied, S. A. (2006). Better but not well: Mental health policy in the United States since 1950. JHU Press.
Scull, A. (1989). The asylum as community or the community as asylum: paradoxes and contradictions of mental health care. Social order/mental disorder: Anglo-American psychiatry in historical perspective, 300330.
Tomes, N. (2006). The patient as a policy factor: A historical case study of the consumer/survivor movement in mental health. Health Affairs, 25(3), 720-729.
For April 16: Mental Illness as a Crime
Grob (1994) The Mad Among Us: Chapter 11 “Confronting the Mad Among Us in Contemporary America” pages 279-312
Harcourt, B. E. (2005). From the asylum to the prison: Rethinking the incarceration revolution. Tex. L. Rev., 84, 1751.
Opinion in Braggs et Al v Dunn (Alabama 2017) https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/documents/the_opinion.pdf The full opinion is 302 pages and is hard reading. Chose a particular section from the FINDINGS OF FACT parts and be ready to talk about your section in class.
Shelburne, Beth. (2017) What Happened to Jamie Lee Wallace? Available online http://www.wbrc.com/story/35819522/what-happened-to-jamie-lee-wallace/
Recommended Metzl, J. M., & MacLeish, K. T. (2015). Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms. American journal of public health, 105(2), 240-249.
Muhammad, K. G. (2011). The condemnation of blackness. Harvard University Press.
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Roth, A. (2018). Insane: America's Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness. Hachette UK.
Miller, D & Hanson, A. (2016) Committed: The Battle Over Involuntary Psychiatric Care, Johns Hopkins University Press, MD.
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