100 Books Like Madness in Civilization

The abuse of power is a running theme in the history of psychiatry. Psychiatry has often been wielded to control those who challenge the status quo. This book neatly and creatively unearths one such attempt to stifle dissent by labeling it mad.

Focusing on a mental hospital in Michigan, Jonathan Metzl shows how schizophrenia was harnessed to pathologize Black Civil Rights activism in the 1960s. In the process, schizophrenia was transformed from a condition mainly diagnosed in whites to one that stressed violence and aggression and was mainly diagnosed in black males. I especially love how Metzl punctuates his historical analysis with poignant stories of individuals caught up in this dark period of racism in psychiatry. 

No list on the dubious history of psychiatry would be complete without a book about psychiatry’s efforts to control women. This is a classic in this regard. Focusing on the first quarter of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Lunbeck shows how psychiatrists, in an effort to assert their relevance and professional authority, brought issues related to marriage, sexuality, and gender into their ambit.

This book is deft in revealing how psychiatrists wielded the power to define normality to pathologize nonconforming women and insinuate themselves into our most intimate spheres. Although the history that Lunbeck recounts is now a century in the past, its lessons echo to this day.

I am a sucker for books that bridge the uncanny valley between the past and present to answer the question, how in the hell did this happen? Lobotomy is the most infamous of all psychiatry “treatments.” From our perch in the present, it is hard to fathom the popularity of such a barbaric practice.

In this book, Jack Pressman tells the chilling story of lobotomy but does so in a way that stresses how normal, and even banal, it was for psychiatrists of the day. Faced with overcrowded mental hospitals, psychiatrists turned to lobotomy out of desperation, willfully swallowing its hype. And with their probing transorbital ice picks, they perpetrated horrific abuses on their patients in what might be the darkest moment in psychiatry’s past. 

Most of us seek out history with an eye to the present. In this book, Allan Horwitz explains the emergence of our current brand of psychiatry. Sometimes called “biomedical psychiatry,” this is the psychiatry of the DSM and ever-rising rates of mental health diagnoses, of Prozac and psychopharmaceutical drugs, of chemical imbalances and neurological accounts of mental disorders.

Horwitz shows how the shift to this present was driven not by science but by professional crisis. In the 1970s, besieged by critics and exposés of their failings, psychiatrists ditched the Freudian-inspired psychodynamic model for one that emphasized diagnosis and medication. But the science was always dubious, and the upshot of this shift is a culture awash in psychiatric diagnoses for seemingly everything.  

This is a lesser-known book, and I wish more teens had it in their library. There is no shirking behind any kind of veil or safety as Vincent weaves his way through his suicidal ideations, finds friendships, and navigates his health back to safety. This is a quiet novel that’s brutally honest about how one continues on when they’re not sure why they should.

Bonus for animal lovers as Vincent spends a lot of time at the local animal shelter.

This is an inciteful and practical guide, written by clinical psychologist Xavier Amador, that addresses anosognosia—the common inability of people with severe mental illness to recognize their condition. Drawing on his own experience as both a clinician and a family member of someone with schizophrenia, Amador offers compassionate advice for helping loved ones accept treatment without coercion. No small feat when the symptomatic persons truly believe nothing is amiss.

The book introduces the LEAP (Listen, Empathize, Agree, Partner) approach, a communication strategy designed to build trust and reduce family conflict. It’s a must-read for anyone supporting a sibling or parent with schizophrenia or other psychiatric disorders. I found myself deeply empathetic to family members who experience burnout when the symptoms of psychosis seem insurmountable.

I read this novel when I was twenty-two years old.

I remember exactly where I was (in the kitchen of a dilapidated apartment I loved) and what time of day I read it (early afternoon until early evening). I cackled and sobbed (I am not a sobber), and afterward, I couldn’t get the main character’s voice out of my head for days. He narrated everywhere I went and everything I did.

Before then, I’d always written casual nonsense for my own entertainment, but I knew afterward I wanted to do that—I wanted to make people laugh, horrify them, and put their hearts through the wringer. 

If you need inspiration to write strange stories, then read the Brazilian Machado de Assis. In his photos he looks like a prim and proper gentleman, giving no hint he wrote some of the whackiest fiction you’ll ever encounter—for example, one story is told from the perspective of a needle. The Alienist is a favorite. Bacamarte, a man devoted to science, opens an insane asylum in the town of Itaguaí, taking in the mentally ill. But his scientific mind leads him to the inevitable conclusion that he must also include healthy people who, according to his diagnosis, are about to go crazy. Soon, his asylum, Casa Verdi, accommodates the entire town. Then, in the ending of the story… Well, you’ll have to read it yourself to find out. 

This book is about something as disruptive to a child’s world as can be–a parent’s debilitating mental illness–and Baldwin handles it realistically and sensitively.

Twelve-year-old Della is terrified and heartbroken by her mother’s struggles with schizophrenia, and I know as a writer that Baldwin faced a huge challenge in telling this story: finding where the hope lies when, ultimately, there’s no cure for the mom.

The answer lies in acceptance and community, and Baldwin handles this in a way that feels wise, real, and satisfying to me. This book is also close to my heart because it is set in a part of the world I know and love, rural eastern North Carolina, and Baldwin describes it so beautifully.

A stunning biography of a brilliant mathematician, John Forbes Nash, and his descent and resurrection from madness, that became a hit movie.

Nasar makes both the mathematics and the personality of an early, unusual and important game theorist come alive for even the most math-adverse reader. This is an unusual account of recovery, of a mind apprehending the world of human competition, and a poetical love and coming-of-age story.