Mental Health Episodes

This week, we’re talking about straitjackets. Despite many seeing the straitjacket as an extreme method of patient restraint, in the 1700s it was introduced as a modern and humane solution.

This week, we’re talking about asylum art. And we’re focusing on a little volume of illustrations of patients at an asylum - the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. The illustrations show one patient playing a fiddle, another drinking a cup of tea. This volume is particularly interesting because they are all drawn by Robert Miles - an artist who was also a patient at the asylum

Delves into the history of psychiatry and modern-day psychiatry practice.

Dr Thomas Brown - considered to have been the “inventor of the emotions”.

Dr Maureen Park uses the archive of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital to examine the reasons why, and the extent to which, drawing was promoted as a ‘therapeutic’ activity in the hospital.

Dr Allan Beveridge discusses the 19th century Scottish pioneer of psychiatric medicine Sir Alexander Morison and the collection of illustrations of asylum patients which he commissioned.

John Crichton considers the origins of Scotland’s ‘insanity’ law and what ancient themes are still relevant today.

Sarah Wise examines a number of disputed lunacy cases, ranging from the 1820s to the 1890s - including the unsavoury incident that Sir Alexander Morison himself became embroiled in.

Lisa Smith discusses the tumultuous relationships of the Newdigates and attempts to piece together a shadowy family scandal from the perspectives of father, daughter and son.

Prof. Chris Philo explores the ‘madness’ of both human and animals.

For much of the 19th-C there was serious medical discussion about the dangers of excessive music in girls’ education. This examines theories relating to this medical panic and consider motivations behind it.

Traces the history of stress in the twentieth century, exploring scientific theories, clinical formulations and personal experiences of stress and stress-related diseases.

Examines the development of thinking on the mind-stomach nexus, and how such thinking was incorporated into critiques of modern Britain.

Explores the migratory patterns of Irish patients into and through the Lancashire asylum system in the later 19th century.

Explores how healthcare professionals in the UK interpreted psychosomatic disorders such as shell shock, battle exhaustion and traumatic neurasthenia, in the context of psychiatric research and the new forms of warfare.

Explores the relationship between madness, psychiatry and gender over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, using the Royal Edinburgh Asylum as a case study.

Drawing on over a thousand patient letters, this examines the lives of inmates at the Royal Edinburgh Asylum when the renowned psychiatrist Thomas Clouston was Superintendent.