History of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology: With an Epilogue on Psychiatry and the Mind-Body Relation

This book chronicles the conceptual and methodological facets of psychiatry and medical psychology throughout history. Many of these are pertinent to contemporary issues in general medicine, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and the social sciences. Section One, "Periods," reviews the prehistory and history of the field from the embryonic psychiatry of antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, through the emergence of psychiatry as a medical specialty. Section Two, "Key Topics and Concepts", explores the history of major psychiatric disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, psychosomatic disorders, the influence of neurology of psychiatry, the evolution and transformation of mental institutions, and the psychoanalytic movement in the United States. Section Three, "Epilogue", is a philosophical treatment of psychiatry as a medical specialty.