Asylum Ways of Seeing: Psychiatric Patients, American Thought and Culture

In the twentieth century, people with mental illnesses in the United States were more intense observers of institutional and broader citizenship, scientific modernity, human rights, and solidarities among the suffering, according to Heather Murray's Asylum Ways of Seeing. This way of thinking and imagining contrasts with more common images of the patient as passive, resigned, and absented from the world in the cloistered setting of the hospital.

Format: Hardback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 04 January 2022
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Here is the rephrased text:

Asylum Ways of Seeing delves into the cultural and intellectual history of individuals with mental illnesses in the United States during the twentieth century. While acknowledging the fraught and often violent histories of American psychiatric hospitals, Heather Murray suggests that these institutions played a significant role in shaping patients' perspectives. Patients became more intense observers, giving greater consideration to institutional and broader forms of citizenship, the nature and needs of communities versus individuals, scientific modernity, and human rights and solidarities among the suffering. These ideas permeated twentieth-century America, not just within psychiatric hospitals but also flowing outward.

The intimate, creative, and political correspondence, writings, and drawings of patients, as well as hospital publications and films, provide a rich source of insight into these themes. Murray's analysis highlights the contrast between the common images of patients as passive, resigned, and absent from the world within the cloistered setting of the hospital and the alternative way of thinking and imagining that emerged from within these institutions.

Asylum Ways of Seeing explores the evolution of the perception of patient resignation throughout the twentieth century. Initially, in the early twentieth century, patient resignation was interpreted as wisdom, a recognition of the limitations of human understanding and the need for submission to medical authority. However, by mid-century, this perspective shifted, as it was perceived as a capitulation to scientific and political authority. By the century's end, patient resignation was condemned as a profound violation of selfhood and individual rights.

In calling for a reconsideration of the philosophical possibilities within resignation, Asylum Ways of Seeing prompts us to explore alternative perspectives on the role of patients in the healthcare system. It challenges us to question the dominant narratives that have shaped our understanding of mental illness and to consider the potential for patients to assert their agency and participate in shaping their own care and treatment.

Overall, Asylum Ways of Seeing offers a valuable contribution to the study of mental health history and philosophy, shedding light on the complex and multifaceted experiences of individuals with mental illnesses and challenging us to reevaluate our assumptions and attitudes toward these individuals and their care.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780812253573