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Valuing the past: The importance of an understanding of the history of psychiatry for healthcare professionals, service users and carers
Author(s) -
Ion Robin M.,
Beer M. Dominic
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
international journal of mental health nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.911
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1447-0349
pISSN - 1445-8330
DOI - 10.1046/j.1447-0349.2003.t01-1-.x
Subject(s) - service (business) , psychiatry , psychology , mental illness , mental health , mental healthcare , health professionals , health care , medicine , political science , business , law , marketing
Drawing primarily on examples from the UK, this paper argues that an understanding of the history of psychiatry can be of practical use to clinicians, service users and carers. It can provide a window on the present and an explanation of some aspects of current practice. In addition, a study of the past can provide a vision of how things might be done differently in the present and in the future. Moreover, knowledge of the past can also serve to remind us of psychiatry's potential for misuse and the dangers inherent in a view of the world in which psychiatry is simply seen as a benevolent science destined to find an answer to mental illness.