reference

This is an unbalanced, often inaccurate, and entirely adulatory history of psychiatry, masquerading as scholarship. Shorter finally lost me at the point where he describes ice-pick lobotomies, of which he is mildly diapproving, as an "adventure."

I really enjoyed the part of this book on the history of psychiatry. Unfortunately only about 60% of the book is on this topic and the rest consists of Shorter's unbalanced opinions. As a Psychiartic Registrar/resident slightly more simpathetic to the Biological approach, even I found this book extremely biased. Shorter's concrete style of reasoning makes him far more suitable to write a book on the history of surgery. The finer nuances and richness of the field of psychiatry is clearly outside his grasp.

Shorter's book is an important addition to the history of psychiatry. It falls short because of Shorter's "over kill" in his polemic against psychoanalysis. The Freudian perspective needs thoughtful criticism, but Shorter's attacks become carping. Psychoanalysis has made important cultural contributions, and many people have received benefit from the analyst's couch. Good history should have a direction, even a perspective. But Shorter's history would have been better served with a calmer and more balanced voice.