History (4,530 posts)

History of Psychiatry, Ahead of Print.
We present a social-historical perspective on the evolution of the voice-hearing phenomenon in Western society. Based upon a systematic search from a selection of nine databases, we trace the way hearing voices has been understood throughout the ages. Originally, hearing voices was considered a gifted talent for accessing the divine, but the progressive influence of monotheistic religion gradually condemned the practice to social marginalization. Later, the medical and psychiatric professions of secular society were instrumental in attaching stigma to both voice hearers and the phenomenon itself, thereby reinforcing social exclusion. More recently, the re-integration of voice hearers into the community by health authorities in various countries appears to have provided a new, socially acceptable setting for the phenomenon.

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This is the first in a series of interviews celebrating Community Care’s 50th anniversary. We will be speaking to key figures who have shaped the last 50 years in social work and those who will shape it in the years to come.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is the lead federal agency for research on mental disorders. NIMH is one of the 27 Institutes and Centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest biomedical research agency in the world. NIH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Figure 6. Examples of repetitive movements and behaviour (Anthony, 1957a).

A 1968 underground explosion that killed 78 coal miners in Farmington, West Virginia (above), was a flashpoint for reform after years of fatalities and a growing awareness of black lung disease.

Suitcases once belonging to residents of a New York State mental hospital tell the stories of long-forgotten lives. Above: RL’s trunk contains not only a substantial library of volumes from Cervantes to Poe but also a manuscript that he wrote

Almost half the people displaced worldwide are under 18, yet their voices are rarely heard. This book records the experiences of children arriving in Britain from Hitler’s Europe in the 1930s to those escaping war in Ukraine in 2022. It follows the journeys of war-traumatised children from Mogadishu to Mile End and from Syria to a Scottish isle. Some followed their parents to the ‘motherland’ from the former British Empire. Others came independently to escape forced marriage or military conscription.

Figure 3. Big Flame, ‘We Won’t Pay’ Leaflet.

While it is important that the Administration is taking the affordable housing crisis seriously, the long history of attempts to address housing problems in the U.S. reveals these types of public-private initiatives have repeatedly enriched the private sector and done little to help those who need government action the most.

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Women of every age and background packed onto the sidewalks, with the oldest following the procession in carriages and the youngest being pushed in strollers by their mothers. Hundreds more people peered out of their windows upon the nurses, teachers, writers, social workers and students. “There were women who work with their heads and women who work with their hands and women who never work at all. And they all marched,” the New York Times reported the next day.

Rep. Peggy Maxie, who represented Seattle in the state House for six terms, carries a campaign sign. After leaving the Legislature, Maxie worked as a consultant on community projects and as a mental health therapist and marriage counselor.