IAN Dowbiggin. The Quest for Mental Health

This book is a sweeping, synthetic history of the “struggle to achieve psychological wellness” from the late eighteenth century to the present (p. 2). Ian Dowbiggin, who has previously published on such subjects as the history of psychiatry, eugenics, and euthanasia, admirably fulfills the mission of the Cambridge Essential Histories series in which the book appears: to provide narrative, argument-driven histories for use in undergraduate survey and upper-division courses. The book contends that the rise of “therapism” has not increased happiness but has instead lowered people's threshold for emotional pain and rendered them more dependent on psychological professionals and state and medical bureaucracies. Yet The Quest for Mental Health is less a polemic than an introductory history of the psychological professions, popular movements and state-supported efforts to promote mental health, and changing attitudes toward personal woe and help-seeking. While the book includes fascinating material on countries ranging from India to Russia to Japan, it focuses predominantly on North America and Western Europe.

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