psychiatry

Jean-Martin Charcot demonstrating hysteria in a hypnotised patient at the Salpêtrière. Etching by A. Lurat, 1888, after P.A.A. Brouillet, 1887

Borders

Gender, Psychiatry, and Borderline Personality Disorder

In popular media, borderline personality disorder has become linked in particular to beautiful, unstable, and ultimately dangerous white women, most famously Glenn Close’s character in the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction. As a diagnosis, borderline personality disorder went through various iterations before being declared a personality disorder enshrined in the DSM-III Read more…

By Sarah Handley-Cousins, 2 months2 months ago

Drugs

Mother’s Little Helper: Psychiatry, Gender, and the Rise of Psychopharmaceuticals

For centuries, psychiatrists searched for the cure to mental illness, frustrated that medical doctors seemed to be able to find the “magic bullet” medications to fight disease and infection. In the mid 20th century, though, a series of new major and minor tranquilizers revolutionized the world of psychiatry. Doctors doled Read more…

By Sarah Handley-Cousins, 8 months8 months ago