Madness at Home The Psychiatrist, the Patient, and the Family in England, 1820-1860

“A brilliant and profoundly original book, one of the most important contributions to the history of psychiatry in the past decade.”—Andrew Scull, co-author of Customers and Patrons of the Mad-Trade: The Management of Lunacy in Eighteenth-Century London"Suzuki's sophisticated and revealing account is a persuasive reminder that the family's recent involvement in mental health care policy-making is nothing new. As he shows, in more ways than one, madness does indeed begin at home.”—Ian Dowbiggin, author of A Concise History of Euthanasia: Life, Death, God and Medicine“Suzuki beautifully composes a portrait of domestic care for the insane in nineteenth century England. In this text, Suzuki skillfully and elegantly explores the importance of family relationships in the identification, treatment and re-integration of the insane. Suzuki elucidates the web of relationships which marked out the private and public worlds of insanity in the long nineteenth century and captures the interplay of different actors who were engaged in the care, treatment, and disposal of those considered mad.”—Joseph Melling, author of The Politics of Madness: Insanity and the English Asylum, 1845-1914