Lectures: 3-part series on the History of Psychiatry in America (Section on Historical Medicine, New York Academy of Medicine)
Lectures: 3-part series on the History of Psychiatry in America (Section on Historical Medicine, New York Academy of Medicine) Forwarded to HISTNEUR-L from H-SCI-MED-ETCH. --RJ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carsten Timmermann, H-SCI-MED-TECH" [smtedit@MAIL.H-NET.MSU.EDU] Date: Friday, January 30, 2004 8:56 am Subject: Three Part Lecture Series on the History of Psychiatry in America, New York Academy of Medicine From: Chris Warren [cwarren@NYAM.ORG] Subject: Three Part Lecture Series on the History of Psychiatry in America As part of its 2003-2004 series of free public lectures, The New York Academy of Medicine's Section on Historical Medicine is hosting a three-part mini-series on the recent history of psychiatry in the United States. In the last half century, the use of electroconvulsive therapy and the increased recourse to pharmaceuticals have fundamentally transformed psychiatry, by challenging the primacy of talk therapy, and --by bringing pharmaceutical companies and medical technologies to the psychiatric encounter-- complicating the traditional doctor-patient relationship. The three lectures in this mini-series will explore important professional, ethical, economic, and social aspects of these changes. Wednesday, February 18 Jonathan Sadowsky, Ph.D., The Lilliana Sauter Lecture: "Electroconvulsive Therapy and the Concept of Progress in Medical History" Lecture 6:00 PM, Reception 5:30 PM >From its introduction, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been simultaneously hailed as a miracle cure and denounced as a cruel instrument of social control. Unlike many medical technologies of the twentieth century, it has never conveyed to the public an image of progress. While remaining sensitive to the coercive or punitive applications for which the technology of ECT has been employed, Professor Sadowsky will trace its history: from its beginnings, through the 1960s, when, he says, "ECT became a symbol for the anti-psychiatry movement," to today's "kinder, gentler ECT" treatments involving muscle relaxants, redesigned equipment, and less stigmatizing protocols. This presentation will explore scientific understandings, patient experiences, and popular culture in order to examine not only the contested meanings of this therapy, but of cultural meanings of medical progress. -- Wednesday, March 17 Jonathan Metzl, MD, Ph.D.: "Prescribing Gender in the Era of Wonder Drugs" Lecture 6:00 PM, Reception 5:30 PM This talk will explore the gender history of psychotropic medications such as Miltown, Valium, and Prozac, the three best selling psychotropic wonder drugs of the latter half of the twentieth century. The talk will trace the notion of "pills for everyday worries" as depicted in many forums from 1950 to 2003, in order to explore the development of brand named psychotropic medications both as forms of treatment and also as symbols of cultural inquietude. In the process, the talk will look closely at the mother's little helpers, valleys of dolls, Prozac nations, and other gender inflected stereotypes of psychopharmaceuticals in American culture. -- Wednesday, April 7 Andrea Tone, Ph.D.: "They Used to Call it 'Just Nerves': Pills, Science, and Profit in Modern Medicine" Lecture 6:00 PM, Reception 5:30 PM In this talk, Andrea Tone considers the complex modern history of the pharmaceutical industry as well as the doctors who prescribed and the patients who took the new miracle drugs that began appearing in the mid-1950s. Within a decade Miltown and its benzodiazepine successors (particularly Librium and Valium) had become household words, and by 1972 Valium had become the most frequently prescribed drug in the United States and the world. A majority of prescribers were not psychiatrists but general practitioners, internists, gynecologists, surgeons, and pediatricians. The unprecedented success of tranquilizers raises unsettling questions about the role of psychopharmacology in clinical practice, the specter of middle class and suburban drug abuse, and the elusive threshold separating everyday nerves from pathological anxiety, questions that continue to haunt modern psychiatry. -- These events are free and open to the public. For more information about NYAM programs in the history of medicine, write history@nyam.org or call Christian Warren at 212.822.7314. Founded in 1847, the New York Academy of Medicine is a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the health of the public through research, education and advocacy, with a particular focus on disadvantaged urban populations. Please visit our website: http://www.nyam.org .