History of Psychiatry Podcast Series
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
The 1966 Aberfan disaster
06 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast, Professor Houston talks about the psychological impact on those affected by the Aberfan disaster of 1966. The podcast expands on an i...
Devolved psychiatries - Professor Rab Houston
17 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Devolved psychiatries - Professor Rab Houston by Professor Rab Houston
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Professor John Crichton
07 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Prof John Crichton - Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist and Chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland. What is a forensic psychiatrist? ...
Prisoners or Patients? Criminal Insanity in Victorian Scotland
05 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This is a 50 minute audio file of a talk I delivered at the National Records of Scotland on 7 August 2019, in connection with my hugely successful exh...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Professor Rory O'Connor
07 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Rory O’Connor, Suicidal Behaviour Research Laboratory, University of Glasgow Suicide and self-harm are major public health concerns with ...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Chris Williams
15 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast Professor Chris Williams, a researcher and teacher in the area of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) introduces CBT as a self-help fo...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Michael Brown
05 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Chief Inspector Michael Brown: ‘Police, policing, and mental health in the UK’. Police services all over the world are essential as a de facto me...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Dr Fionnuala Williams
09 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
People with learning disability were understood and treated very differently in the past from the present. While attempts were always made to help the...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Dr Ruth Allen
08 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Social workers and care in the community Social workers have a crucial part to play in improving mental health services and mental health outcomes fo...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Prof. Chris Frith
01 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the podcast I talk about my research on the biological basis of schizophrenia using brain imaging and my attempts to understand symptoms such as ha...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Prof. Uta Frith
24 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Autism is a neuro-developmental disorder with a prevalence of about one in 100 births. Although we assume that this disorder has always been with us, ...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Prof Douglas Blackwood
17 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Symptoms of schizophrenia develop in more than 1:200 people, in all cultures, while 2- 4% of the population may experience major depression at some ti...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Prof Nancy A. Pachana
10 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
People in both the developed and the developing world are living longer, and in better health, than in any prior point in history. However, mental hea...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Dr Calum Munro
03 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Eating Disorders are understandable as a way of coping with uncomfortable feelings. A temporary sense of reward or emotional detachment can occur due ...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Prof. Danny Smith
30 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Bipolar disorder is a complex psychiatric disorder of mood and behaviour that has been recognised for thousands of years. It probably affects about 1 ...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Prof. Alex Baldacchino
27 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast, Professor Rab Houston speaks to Alexander Baldacchino, Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry and Addictions, University of St Andrews and...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Mental Health Nursing, Gerry Hastie
20 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Gerry Hastie trained between 1993-96, when nurse training programmes were changing from being delivered by the Local Health Authority to Higher Educat...
Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts - Dr Miles Mack RCGP
13 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the first podcast of our new series, Professor Rab Houston is in conversation with Dr Miles Mack, Past chair of RCGP Scotland and a GP partner in D...
Colonial Psychiatry 4 - How and why? Practising psychiatry in colonial Africa
13 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I argued in the last podcast that medical theories in colonial Africa had a strong racial element to them, which buttressed colonialism. In this final...
Colonial Psychiatry 3 - How and why?: Ethno-psychiatry and racism
06 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
If you have listened to my series of podcasts on the history of psychiatry in Britain and Ireland you will know that psychiatric relationships are at ...
Colonial Psychiatry 2 - Colonial psychiatry over time and space
30 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of the last podcast I explained what was special about colonial psychiatry from the 1880s to the 1960s, compared with mental medicine in th...
Colonial Psychiatry 1 - What and where?: colonial psychiatry’s origins and characteristics
23 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I have been asked by the Scotland Malawi Mental Health Project to prepare a short series of podcasts to act as a component of the training programme f...
22 Shell Shock
03 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We are now acutely aware of the effect which viewing or participating in traumatic events can have on people. This last ‘document’ (actually a set...
Extract 21.1 - Living With Madness 2: An Insane Murderer
03 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This extract accompanies Podcast 21 - Living With Madness 2: An Insane Murderer IMAGE: Wellcome Library, London, L0040923. John Totterdale throwing ...
21 - Living With Madness 2: An Insane Murderer
03 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We encountered a coroner’s inquest a few weeks back, presiding over the tragic suicide of an anonymous man. An inquest could deliver a verdict on th...
Extract 20.1 - Living with madness 1: an apprentice in danger, 1738
28 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This extract accompanies Podcast 20 - Living with madness 1: an apprentice in danger, 1738 IMAGE: ‘Fashion Before Ease, or A Good Constitution Sacr...
20. Living with madness 1: an apprentice in danger, 1738
28 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Most people with mental disorders are more of a liability to themselves than to others. The same cannot be said of this podcast and the next one, wher...
Extract 19.1 - Fighting back. A ballad about William Frederick Windham, 1862
20 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This extract accompanies Podcast 19 - Fighting back. A ballad about William Frederick Windham, 1862. IMAGE: Broadsheet Ballad: ‘Poor Windham’. Bo...
19. Fighting back. A ballad about William Frederick Windham, 1862
20 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This series is entitled ‘the voice of the mad’, but sometimes mentally disordered people needed advocates to speak up for them. Normally that woul...
Extract 18.1 - Christian Watt
10 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This extract accompanies Podcast 18 - Being an asylum patient 4: Christian Watt at Aberdeen Royal Mental Asylum, 1877 SOURCE: The Christian Watt pape...
18. Being an asylum patient 4: Christian Watt at Aberdeen Royal Mental Asylum, 1877
10 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
As I showed last week, Herman Charles Merivale’s time at Ticehurst was a bit like being in a nice hotel, though he did not like the other ‘guests’...
Extract 17.1 - Herman Charles Merivale
07 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This extract accompanies Podcast 17 - Being an asylum patient 3b: Herman Charles Merivale at Ticehurst, 1875 IMAGE: Wellcome Library, London. Ticehur...
17. Being an asylum patient 3b: Herman Charles Merivale at Ticehurst, 1875
07 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Last week’s extract and podcast allowed us to see what others thought of the lawyer Herman Charles Merivale, when he was committed to a private asyl...
Extract 16.1 - Herman Merivale
30 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This extract accompanies Podcast 16 - Being an asylum patient 3a: Herman Charles Merivale admitted to Ticehurst, 1875 IMAGE: Wellcome Library, Londo...
16. Being an asylum patient 3a: Herman Charles Merivale admitted to Ticehurst, 1875
30 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The most abundant sources for understanding the history of psychiatry are medical case notes, kept by asylum staff. In addition, petitions for admissi...
Extract 15.1 - Being An Asylum Patient 2: Letters from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital
23 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This extract accompanies Podcast 15 Being an asylum patient 2: Letters from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, late 19th century. IMAGE: Lothian Health Bo...
15. Being an Asylum Patient 2: Letters from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, late 19th century
23 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Last week I looked at some regulations from Cardiff District Asylum at the start of the twentieth century. One of their main functions was to restrict...
Extract 14.1 - Being An Asylum Patient Cardiff Asylum Regulations
17 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This extract accompanies Podcast 14 Being an asylum patient 1: Cardiff Asylum regulations, 1919 Voice credit: Rosie Beech IMAGE: Psychiatric patient...
14. Being an Asylum Patient 1: Cardiff Asylum regulations, 1919
17 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast and the next four, I’m going to look at what patients made of entering and being in what we call mental hospitals and what were know...
13. Suicide, Part 2 - A London coroner’s inquest verdict, 1791
10 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Eighteenth and nineteenth century English coroners’ inquests investigated roughly one death in every twenty. Their main task was to discover if some...
Extract 13.1 Suicide 2 - London Coroner's Verdict
10 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This extract accompanies Podcast 13 - Suicide 2. A London coroner's inquest verdict. Voice Credit: Rosie Beech
Extract 12.9 Quintin Macadam
03 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This voice extract accompanies Podcast 12 - Suicide 1. Letters, diaries, and notes in the National Archives of Scotland Read by: Sebastian Bridges, Ca...
Extract 12.8 Peter Fairbairn
03 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This voice extract accompanies Podcast 12 - Suicide 1. Letters, diaries, and notes in the National Archives of Scotland Read by: Sebastian Bridges, Ca...
Extract 12.7 John McKain
03 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This voice extract accompanies Podcast 12 - Suicide 1. Letters, diaries, and notes in the National Archives of Scotland Read by: Sebastian Bridges, Ca...
Extract 12.6 Duke Of Hamilton
03 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This voice extract accompanies Podcast 12 - Suicide 1. Letters, diaries, and notes in the National Archives of Scotland Read by: Sebastian Bridges, Ca...
Extract 12.5 John Ross
03 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This voice extract accompanies Podcast 12 - Suicide 1. Letters, diaries, and notes in the National Archives of Scotland Read by: Sebastian Bridges, Ca...
Extract 12.4 George Philips
03 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This voice extract accompanies Podcast 12 - Suicide 1. Letters, diaries, and notes in the National Archives of Scotland Read by: Sebastian Bridges, Ca...
Extract 12.3 Gilbert Innes
03 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This voice extract accompanies Podcast 12 - Suicide 1. Letters, diaries, and notes in the National Archives of Scotland Read by: Sebastian Bridges, Ca...
Extract 12.2 Jane Innes
03 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This voice extract accompanies Podcast 12 - Suicide 1. Letters, diaries, and notes in the National Archives of Scotland Read by: Sebastian Bridges, Ca...
Extract 12.1 Andrew Murison
03 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This voice extract accompanies Podcast 12 - Suicide 1. Letters, diaries, and notes in the National Archives of Scotland Read by: Sebastian Bridges, Ca...
12. Suicide, Part 1: Letters, diaries, and notes in the National Archives of Scotland
03 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
These nine examples of letters, diaries, and notes build up to what I think is a compelling picture of the despair and powerlessness felt by suicides....
11. Attempted suicide - William Cowper (1763)
26 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This is the first of three podcasts that give different accounts of suicide. We first came across William Cowper a few weeks back, having an anxiety a...
Extract 11.1 William Cowper
26 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This voice extract accompanies podcast 11 - William Cowper - Attempted Suicide SPOKEN VERSION: Henry Roberts IMAGE: [William Cowper 2] William Cowper...
Extract 10.1 Hugh Blair
19 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This extract accompanies Podcast 10 A ‘silent madness’. Hugh Blair (1747) IMAGE: James Robertson of Kincraigie; John Dhu (Dow, MacDonald); Jamie ...
10. A ‘silent madness’. Hugh Blair (1747)
19 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Last week’s extract was a series of diary entries showing how a clergyman sought to help a young woman with learning disabilities. Hearing the voice...
Extract 9.1 Alice Hill
12 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Voice Credit: Hannah Raymond Cox IMAGE: Wellcome Library, London, V0030051. Young girl with Down's syndrome, sitting, wearing striped socks. Photogra...
9. Protection or control - Alice Hill (1730)
12 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
People with learning disabilities were often slow to acquire the ability to read and write – which were not normal skills for many people until the ...
8 (iv)Compulsive and delusional behaviour. John Philip (1777)- John’s fate and that of his victim
04 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
IMAGE: The House of Lethen, Auldearn: the family home of Miss Anne Brodie, daughter of Alexander Brodie and Henrietta Grant (Mrs Brodie). Canmore 1559...
8 (iii) Compulsive and delusional behaviour. John Philip (1777)- Trial and committal
29 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
IMAGE: Wellcome Library, London, L0080105. ‘Madeleine Smith at the bar of the Justiciary, Edinburgh’. Copyrighted work available under Creative Co...
8 (ii) Compulsive and delusional behaviour. John Philip (1777) - John Philip’s point of view
22 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we continue the story of John Philip, a humble legal clerk who lived in a world of fantasy, delusion, and obsession. This week, we try to ...
Extract 7.1 William Cowper
08 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Voice credit: Henry Roberts IMAGE: William Cowper by George Romney, pastel, 1792. Credit: National Portrait Gallery, London / Universal Images Group...
7. Religion and recovery. William Cowper (1764)
08 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Like many of those who had the time to write about their mental state prior to modern times, William Cowper came from a privileged background. Early i...
Extract 8.1 John Phillip
08 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
IMAGE: Head of Military Man by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, 1682-1754, oil on canvas. Credit: SuperStock/ Universal Images Group, Rights Managed / For...
8 (i) Compulsive and delusional behaviour. John Philip (1777) - A poor clerk and a society heiress
08 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Among those we have encountered so far in this series, only Alexander Cruden seems to have frightened those around him. Most sufferers from mental dis...
6. Madness and genius. James Boswell (1778)
01 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Both Fitzherbert and Allen, whose accounts formed the basis of earlier podcasts in this series, saw their mental condition as a burden to themselves a...
Extract 6.1 James Boswell
01 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
IMAGE: JAMES BOSWELL (1740-1795). Caricature etching, 1786, by Thomas Rowlandson. Credit: The Granger Collection / Universal Images Group, Rights Mana...
Extract 5.1 Dionys Fitzherbert
25 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This audio file is intended up be listened to in conjunction with Series 2, Podcast 5, Religious lunacy. Dionys Fitzherbert (1610). https://soundcloud...
5. Religious lunacy. Dionys Fitzherbert (1610)
25 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Alexander Cruden, the author of last week’s document, wholly disowned the label of madness. Dionys Fitzherbert also refused to be called insane, arg...
Extract 4.1 Alexander Cruden
18 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This audio file is intended up be listened to in conjunction with Series 2, Podcast 4, Obsession - Alexander Cruden (1739). https://soundcloud.com/us...
4. Obsession - Alexander Cruden (1739)
18 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Hannah Allen, the author of last week’s document, knew she suffered from melancholy. An altogether less sympathetic figure, Alexander Cruden vigorou...
3. Depression - Hannah Allen
11 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
As a young woman in 17th century London, Hannah Allen suffered from severe depression or what was then known as melancholy. She wrote about the pain a...
Extract 3.1 Hannah Allen
11 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This audio file is intended up be listened to in conjunction with Series 2, Podcast 3, Depression - Hannah Allen. https://soundcloud.com/user-51674390...
2. Becoming Insane - George Trosse
04 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
We begin our exploration of the voices of the mad with the story of the Rev. George Trosse, an English nonconformist minister, who wrote about his exp...
Extract 2.1 - Becoming insane. George Trosse (1650s)
04 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This audio file is intended up be listened to in conjunction with Series 2, Podcast 2, Becoming Insane - George Trosse. https://soundcloud.com/user-5...
Extract 2.2 - Being put away. George Trosse (1650s)
04 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This audio file is intended up be listened to in conjunction with Series 2, Podcast 2, Becoming Insane - George Trosse. https://soundcloud.com/user-5...
Series Two Introduction
27 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
You might recognise my voice from listening to some or all of my previous set of 44 podcasts about the history of psychiatry in Britain since 1500. Th...
Inter-series Podcast June 2017
06 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In this special podcast, Professor Rab Houston discusses some of the interesting questions that have been raised by listeners during the first series....
13.3 Caring For People Or Caring About People
16 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Understanding the history of psychiatry can help to preserve a sense of perspective, humanity, and humility, by setting out just how unusual and diver...
13.2 Policy And Its Context
09 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
History shows us where we have been. Yet the lessons it offers are not simply examples of what to emulate and what to avoid. Some time back, the archi...
13.1 Historians And Scientists
02 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When we talk about psychiatry and its history we delve deeply into all aspects of human life: mind and body, emotions and experiences, thoughts and mo...
12.3 New Demographics
25 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Diagnoses such as autism are less than a century old. Other conditions, now central to our concerns about mental wellbeing, were hidden in the past, t...
12.2 Changes In Science And Society
19 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The last podcast argued that apparent changes in the diagnosis of mental disorders probably had more to do with developments in science and society, t...
12.1 New Diagnoses Or New Ailments
11 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Mental ailments are presently the fastest growing diagnostic category in world medicine, particularly anxiety, depression, and the damaging effects of...
11.3 The Mind Of The Suicide And The Attitudes Of Relatives And Friends
04 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
I conclude this block of podcasts by showing what insights can be gained into the mind of the suicide, using historical evidence. The podcast sets out...
11.2 Patterns Of Suicide In The Past: Some Surprises
28 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast I outline historic patterns of suicide and I’ll explore attitudes towards it. Historic suicide resembles modern in important regards...
11.1 Hidden From History
21 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Suicide is the most private of acts. It leaves surviving relatives and friends with more profound puzzlement, guilt, and shame than any other kind of ...
10.4 Madness And Creativity
14 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In the previous three podcasts in this section I have talked about the portrayal of madness in media, though at the end of the last one I touched on h...
10.3 Film
07 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Modern understandings of asylums, mental disorder, and psychiatry are strongly influenced by the medicalised identities portrayed in film. This podcas...
10.2 Newspapers And Printed Images
28 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
For the last three centuries newspapers have been the main organ by which the British general public has been informed about events outside their imme...
10.1 Drama And Novels
21 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Perceptions of madness and those who care for it have always been shaped by representations in mass media. Nowadays we have radio and television as we...
9.3 Doctor And Patient Anti - Psychiatry Revisited
14 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The last two podcasts have shown how mad people are different before the law. Psychiatry has certain legal privileges in how it handles patients. The ...
9.2 Civil Law And Mental Incapacity
07 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
All parts of Britain and Ireland had laws to safeguard the physical welfare and supervise the management of the finances, of adults with a mental illn...
9.1 Crime And The Insanity Defence
31 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries the development of psychiatry was shaped by social norms, political climates, and legal frameworks. In this block of podcasts I want to ...
8.5 Mental Health Nursing
24 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Only a small proportion of modern physicians are psychiatrists and they are far outnumbered by nurses and social workers in care systems. The imbalanc...
8.4 Divisions And Diagnoses
17 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A landmark in the formation of psychiatry came in the middle of the twentieth century. After centuries of sometimes heated disagreements between pract...
8.3 The Dawn Of Psychiatry
11 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This podcast returns to mental medicine. It sets out the forces behind the emergence of psychiatry: the rise of asylums, professional associations, re...
8.2 Medical Practitioners And Practice In The Past
03 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The structure of mental health medicine I outlined last time is a late twentieth century innovation. Until the mid-nineteenth century it is probably b...
8.1 Modern Mental Medicine
24 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Modern psychiatric care is structured into a system of provision which mainly provides care in the community. Understanding the neat modern categories...
7.4 Foucault And Anti - Psychiatry
20 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Psychiatry has always been influenced by perspectives from non-medical disciplines and these have in turn changed how the wider society looks at menta...
7.3 Changing Attitudes To Asylums
13 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The great age of the asylum was between 1850 and 1950, yet even then there were voices raised to question the role and effectiveness of large-scale in...