Portraits of People with Mental Disorders in English Canadian History

This paper will discuss the ways in which academic and non-academic historians in English Canada have portrayed people with mental disorders. The phrase “people with mental disorders” refers to individuals who were considered mentally disturbed by their contemporaries and/or by historians. This includes discussion of people who were in mental institutions as well as people who were never confined. Citations are from both detailed studies and fleeting references on this topic. Areas considered include portraits of people with mental disorders as being anonymous, passive, active, named, dangerous, untrustworthy; they also include the problem of stereotypes in the writing of this history.