Emotions and the Making of Psychiatric Reform in Britain, c. 1770-1820

Book excerpt: This book explores the ways which people navigated the emotions provoked by the mad in Britain across the long eighteenth century. Building upon recent advances in the historical study of emotions, it plots the evolution of attitudes towards insanity, and considers how shifting emotional norms influenced the development of a ‘humanitarian’ temperament, which drove the earliest movements for psychiatric reform in England and Scotland. Reacting to a ‘culture of sensibility’, which encouraged tears at the sight of tender suffering, early asylum reformers chose instead to express their humanity through unflinching resolve, charging into madhouses to contemplate scenes of misery usually hidden from public view, and confronting the authorities that enabled neglect to flourish. This intervention required careful emotional management, which is documented comprehensively here for the first time. Drawing upon a wide array of medical and literary sources, this book provides invaluable insights into pre-modern attitudes towards insanity.