The Boston Globe #1 bestseller and Book Sense 76 pick: A "candid and engrossing" history of "the Harvard of mental institutions," and of the evolution of psychiatric treatment. McLean Hospital is one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious mental institutions in America. Its "alumni" include Sylvia Plath, John Forbes Nash, Ray Charles and Susanna Kaysen. Jam...(展开全部)

Its carefully landscaped grounds -- chosen by Frederick Law Olmsted and dotted with four-and five-story Tudor mansions -- could belong to a prosperous New England prep school. There are no fences, no guards, no locked gates. But McLean Hospital is a mental institution -- one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious in America. McLean "alumni" include many of the ...(展开全部)

Throughout most of history, in China the insane were kept within the home and treated by healers who claimed no specialized knowledge of their condition. In the first decade of the twentieth century, however, psychiatric ideas and institutions began to influence longstanding beliefs about the proper treatment for the mentally ill. In The Invention of Madness, Emily Baum traces ...(展开全部)

Throughout most of history, in China the insane were kept within the home and treated by healers who claimed no specialized knowledge of their condition. In the first decade of the twentieth century, however, psychiatric ideas and institutions began to influence longstanding beliefs about the proper treatment for the mentally ill. In The Invention of Madness, Emily Baum traces ...(展开全部)