Last Asylum

图书信息

作者	Taylor, Barbara
出版社	University of Chicago Press
ISBN	9780226274089
出版时间	2015-04-15
字数	45.0万
分类	University of Chicago Press,进口书,外文原版书,文学,自传,回忆录

读书简介

In the late 1970s, Barbara Taylor, then an acclaimed young historian, began to suffer from severe anxiety. In the years that followed, Taylor's world contracted around her illness. Eventually, her struggles were severe enough to lead to her admission to what had once been England's largest psychiatric institution, the infamous Friern Mental Hospital in North London.The Last Asylum is Taylor's breathtakingly blunt and brave account of those years. In it, Taylor draws not only on her experience as a historian, but also, more importantly, on her own lived history at Friern- once known as the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum and today the site of a luxury apartment complex. Taylor was admitted to Friern in July 1988, not long before England's asylum system began to undergo dramatic change: in a development that was mirrored in America, the 1990s saw the old asylums shuttered, their patients left to plot courses through a perpetually overcrowded and underfunded system of community care. But Taylor contends that the emptying of the asylums also marked a bigger loss, a loss of community. She credits her own recovery to the help of a steadfast psychoanalyst and a loyal circle of friends- from Magda, Taylor's manic-depressive roommate, to Fiona, who shares tips for navigating the system and stories of her boyfriend, the "e;Spaceman,"e; and his regular journeys to Saturn. The forging of that network of support and trust was crucial to Taylor's recovery, offering a respite from the "e;stranded, homeless feelings"e; she and others found in the outside world.A vivid picture of mental health treatment at a moment of epochal change, The Last Asylum is also a moving meditation on Taylor's own experience, as well as that of millions of others who struggle with mental illness.

目录

Cover

Copyright

Title Page

By the same author

Dedication

Contents

Prologue

Part One

1. Beginning

2. History

3. Spain

4. Genius

5. Dead Babies

6. God

7. Sex

8. Hunger

9. Filth

10. Crisis

11. Women

12. Bad Dreaming

13. Inferno

Part Two

14. The Asylum

15. First Day

16. In the Bin

17. Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry

18. Friendship

19. Mad Women

20. Day Patient

21. The Hostel

Part Three

22. Change

23. Separation

24. Cure

25. Stories

26. Endings

Epilogue: After the Asylums

Notes

Select Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Index