Martin Halliwell, Therapeutic Revolutions

Martin Halliwell intriguingly characterises Therapeutic Revolutions as a ‘cultural history of US medical humanities after World War II’ (p. 6). One might, based on this description, expect a narrative about the development of the medical humanities as an interdisciplinary social and medical movement. However, Halliwell uses ‘medical humanities’ more generally, in order to stake out an object of study that ‘bridges science, medicine, and the arts’ (p. 6), and to gather up the three elements of the book's subtitle, ‘medicine, psychiatry, and American culture’. The promise and challenge of Therapeutic Revolutions rests on this attempt to locate history across these domains, and to develop a coherent argument about them. Halliwell pans a camera over the mid-century: we see films, magazines and poems; we meet prominent psychologists, US presidents and cultural critics; we learn of federal health initiatives, evolving institutional structures and social issues. Therapeutic Revolutions is at its best as a wide-ranging, readable survey, one well-suited to undergraduate and graduate courses in which students may benefit from an introduction to the seminal figures, movements and issues of the period. Each of the book's three parts—‘Fragmentation: 1945–1954’, ‘Organization: 1953–1961’ and ‘Reorganization: 1961–1970’—represents its respective historical period with a wide range of vividly drawn people, themes and artifacts. For example, a chapter in Part Three, ‘The Human Face of Therapy: Humanistic and Existential Trends’, discusses President Johnson's ‘new fellowship’; changes in the status and image of medical professionals; Carl Rogers and the rise of humanistic psychology; the influence of ‘émigré thinkers steeped in German existential ideas’ (p. 242); the rising prominence of schizophrenia, depression and anxiety; and close readings of ‘two key examples of 1960s healthening narratives’ (p. 259), Joanne Greenberg's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden and Walker Percy's The Last Gentleman. Halliwell is a companionable guide through bustling terrain, and the reader comes away feeling that one was shown both the landmarks as well as a few hidden treasures on this sweeping tour

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