Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction. What's wrong with Elena? -- Part I. The story of diagnosis-- The stepchild of medicine : mesmerists, alienists, and analysts -- Down the garden path : the rise of the shrink -- What is mental illness? : a farrago of diagnoses -- Destroying the Rembrandts, Goyas, and Van Goghs : anti-Freudians to the rescue -- Part II. The story of treatment-- Desperate measures : fever cures, coma therapy, and lobotomies -- Mother's little helper: medicine at last -- Part III. Psychiatry reborn-- Out of the wilderness : the brain revolution -- Soldier's heart : the mystery of trauma -- The triumph of pluralism : the DSM-5 -- The end of stigma : the future of psychiatry.

Psychiatry has come a long way since the days of chaining "lunatics" in cold cells and parading them as freakish marvels before a gaping public. But, as Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, reveals, the path to legitimacy for "the black sheep of medicine" has been anything but smooth. Here, Dr. Lieberman traces the field from its birth as a mystic pseudo-science through its adolescence as a cult of "shrinks" to its late blooming maturity--beginning after World War II--as a science-driven profession that saves lives. It's a history full of fanciful theories--from Franz Mesmer's nineteenth-century notion of "animal magnetism" to the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder as late as the 1970s--and reckless treatments, including "coma therapies" and ice-pick lobotomies. It's also the story of a field divided against itself, torn between mind-focused psychiatrists like Sigmund Freud, whose theory of psychoanalysis dominated American psychiatry for more than half a century, and brain-focused neuroscientists like Eric Kandel, whose pioneering research helped bring the reign of Freud, his hero, to a close. At its heart, Shrinks is a detective tale, propelled by the central questions, what is mental illness and how can it be treated? The true heroes of this tale are the men and women who dared to challenge the status quo in pursuit of answers.--From publisher description.