CORE 103: The Process of Change in Science

Prof. Paul Lerner

Fall Semester 2009

Office: SOS 276 Classroom: THH 114

Tel. 740-1653 Lecture Times: 11-12:20 T, Th
Email: plerner@usc.edu Office Hours: Wed. 10-12 & by appointment

Teaching Assistant: Elizabeth Logan (elizabal@usc.edu).

Discussion Sections: Fridays 9-9:50 THH 119; 10-10:50 THH 112

Madness, Science and Society in the Modern West

Course Description and Goals

For some two centuries Western medicine has been trying to construct a science of the mind and
its functions. Over this period various approaches to understanding mental disorders have arisen
and (in most cases) then fallen out of favor, and mental illnesses have been repeatedly
reclassified, re-categorized and re-conceptualized since the beginnings of professional
psychiatry. Similarly, treatment methods and ways of handling mentally ill patients have
fluctuated over time, from the so-called moral treatment of the late eighteenth century, through
the rise of psychiatric science in the nineteenth, the birth of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in
the early twentieth, the era of somatic cures in the mid twentieth, and our own age of
psychopharmacology.

This course explores the roughly two centuries-long history of psychiatry and studies the
formation of scientific knowledge about the mind, self and psyche. How have perceptions and
representations of insanity changed over time and across cultures? How have different societies
and regimes defined, diagnosed, categorized and dealt with mentally ill people? In what ways do
ideas about madness reflect broader cultural currents and social transformations? How is
knowledge about the mind part of larger systems of power and social organization? How have
diagnoses and treatments of mental illness reflected and intensified notions of gender, race and
class? Finally, how do market forces shape conceptualizations and treatments of mental illness
and sanity?

The class investigates these and other issues through primary source readings — by doctors and
patients — and through historical, sociological and theoretical accounts of psychiatry’s history
— by both clinicians and historians. We will also use literature and film to study the
representation of mental illness and mental science in several contexts. Assignments include a
midterm, a final exam, a paper and weekly writing assignments for section.

Requirements and Grading

• Class participation. Class sessions will consist of a mixture of lecture and discussion.
Attendance is mandatory, and it is essential that you come to every class session prepared, i.e.
that you have read and thought about the assigned material and that you participate actively in
discussions. (If you know in advance that you will have to miss a class, please let me know.)

• Midterm Exam. In class, October 13.

• Paper. 9-12 pages, due at the beginning of class on December 3.

• Final Exam. Tuesday, December 15, 8-10 AM.

• Short Writing Assignments. Due in Friday sections.

• Final Grade. Grades will be calculated by the following formula: Midterm (20%), Paper
(25%), Final Exam (25%), Short Writing Assignments (20%), Class Participation (10%).

Required Reading:

The following books, required for this class are available at the bookstore and on reserve at
Leavey Library:

Healy, David, Mania : a Short History of Bipolar Disorder (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press,
2008) 9780801888229

Metzl, Jonathan, Prozac on the Couch : prescribing gender in the era of wonder drugs (Durham:
Duke, 2003) 082 233061X

Rabinow, Paul, (ed), The Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon) 0394713400

Gay, Peter (ed), The Freud Reader (New York: Norton) 0393314030

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, The Yellow Wallpaper (New York: The Feminist Press) 0912670096

Shorter, Edward A History of Psychiatry. From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac (New
York: Wiley) 047115749X

Required Films

The following movies can be viewed in Leavey Library. You should watch them on your own
by the date indicated or, if schedules permit, we will organize evening screenings.

The Madness of King George dir. Nicholas Hytner, 1995 (September 10)
Spellbound dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1945 (October 27)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest dir. Milos Forman, 1975 (November 24)
Students with Disabilities

Students requesting academic accommodations due to disabilities must register with Disability
Services and Programs (DSP) as early in the semester as possible (STU 301, tel. 740-0776).
Please bring me your letter of verification for approved accommodations early in the semester,
and let me know if you need any assistance with this process.

Topics, Schedule & Assignments

(Readings marked with CR can be found in the course reader.)

August 25 Course Introduction

I Pre-Modern Madness and the Origins of Psychiatry

August 27 Pre-Modern Madness

Reading: Andrew Boorde, “The Kyndes of Madness;” Thomas Willis, “Hysteria
and the Nervous Stock” etc.; John Locke, “An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding” CR

September 1 The Origins of Psychiatry, 1

Reading: The Foucault Reader, pp. 124-167, 273-289

September 3 The Origins of Psychiatry, take 2

Reading, Shorter, A History of Psychiatry, chapter 1

II Moral Treatment and the World of the Asylum

September 8 Pinel: The First Psychiatrist?

Reading: Philippe Pinel, A Treatise on Insanity, Section 2 CR

September 10 The Case of George III

George III: “Report from the Committee Appointed to Examine the Physicians
Who Have Attended His Majesty” (1788) CR
Film: The Madness of King George

September 15 The Asylum and the Age of Therapeutic Optimism

Reading: W.A.F. Browne, “The Asylum as Utopia” CR

September 17 From Curing to Storing: The End of Optimism

Reading: Shorter, History, ch. 2; Healy, Mania, pp. 37-51

September 22 Asylum Architecture: Space and Power

Reading: Foucault Reader, pp. 239-256
III From the Asylum to the Laboratory: Early Psychiatric Science

September 24 Conquering Hysteria: Charcot and the Neurological Paradigm

Reading: Charcot, Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System CR, The
Freud Reader, pp. 48-55

September 29 A German Century?

Reading: Shorter, History, ch. 3; Healy, Mania, ch. 3

IV Nervous Crisis: Gender and Turn-of-the-Century Epidemics

October 1 From the Mind to the Nerves

Reading: Shorter, History, ch. 4, Elaine Showalter, “Managing Women’s Minds”
` (Female Malady, ch. 3) CR

October 6 The Neurasthenic Woman

Reading: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper; Silas Weir Mitchell,
Fat and Blood and How to Make Them CR

October 8 The Rise and Fall of Hysteria

Showalter, “Feminism and Hysteria” (Female Malady, ch. 6) CR

October 13 Midterm Exam in Class

V Freud and the Psychodynamic Revolution

October 15 Early Freud

Reading: The Freud Reader, 3-19; 60-79; Shorter, History, ch. 5 (skim)

October 20 Freud and the Unconscious

Reading: Freud Reader, 143-172, 573-584

October 22 The Dora Case

Reading: Freud Reader, 173-239

October 27 Freud on Sexuality and the Problem of Trauma

Reading: Freud Reader, 239-293, 594-628
Film: Spellbound

VI The Return of the Body: Somatic Cures and Medical Ethics in the Twentieth Century

October 29 Therapeutic Breakthrough

Shorter, History, ch. 6
November 3 The New Therapeutic Regimen
Reading: Sargant and Slater, An Introduction to Physical Methods of Treatment in
Psychiatry, ch. 8, CR

November 5 The Mentally Ill under the Nazis: From Eugenics to “Euthanasia”
Reading: Burleigh and Wippermann, The Persecution of the ‘Hereditarily Ill,”
CR; Burleigh, “Psychiatry, German Society and Nazi ‘Euthanasia’ CR, Foucault
Reader, 258-272

VII Psychiatry and Its Critics in the Age of Prozac

November 10 The Birth of Psychopharmacology

Reading: Shorter, History, ch. 7; Kramer, Listening to Prozac, pp. 47-66; Healy,
Mania, ch. 4

November 12 Psychoanalyzing Ms. Prozac

Reading: Kramer, Listening, Introduction & chs. 1-2; Metzl, Prozac on the
Couch, ch. 1

November 17 The Crisis of Psychoanalysis

Reading: Metzl, Prozac, chs. 2-3

November 19 Rewriting the Narrative

Reading: Metzl, Prozac, ch. 5 & Conclusion

November 24 The Anti-Psychiatry Movement

Reading: R. D. Laing, “The Experience of Schizophrenia,” CR; Thomas Szasz,
The Myth of Mental Illness (Selections) CR
Film: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

November 26 No Class, Thanksgiving Holiday

December 1 Mental Health and the Market

Reading: Healy, Mania, ch. 8 & Coda

December 3 Diagnoses & Prognoses

Papers are Due

December 15 Final Exam, 8-10 AM