Hwang, Hye Jean (2018) Women and depression in interwar Britain : case notes, narratives and experiences. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

Preview

PDF WRAP_Theses_Hwang_2018.pdf - Submitted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (2153Kb) | Preview

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

This research is an attempt to reconstruct the lived experiences of female patients who were deemed to suffer from depression in interwar Britain and explore the ways in which these sufferers understood and attributed their mental illness. In order to achieve these goals, this research analyses women’s own narratives embedded in medical records, notably case notes of the Maudsley Hospital and Holloway Sanatorium, and applies new concepts of life cycle and life event. What female patients experienced in the course of their mental illness, including the types and details of depressive symptoms, were largely decided by their social class, age and gender. They usually related the onset of depression to what they underwent in their daily lives, contrary to professional attributions which stressed heredity as a decisive aetiological factor. The case histories demonstrate that the patients were familiar with medical knowledge, not necessarily the latest ideas though, and that the lay understanding of health and ill-health affected considerably their experiences of mental depression. Moreover, the medical records inform us about women’s life in general and women’s sexuality: living as a woman in the interwar years meant that one had to cope with more traditional and conventional conditions rather than modern ones. This research also improves our understanding of British psychiatry in interwar years, as well as the status of depression as a medical concept. Contrary to the general claim that the Great War was the starting point of modern psychiatry, interwar years should be interpreted as a period of transition, when the influence of the nineteenth-century medical tradition was still strong. The modernisation of depression, which was to be completed only after the Second World War, owed much to the Victorian psychiatry, although it was authorised as a formal diagnosis and defeated its powerful predecessor, melancholia, during the interwar period.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain R Medicine > RC Internal medicine
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Depression in women -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century, Women -- Mental health -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century, Mentally ill women -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century, Psychiatry -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century, Mental health services -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century, Psychiatric hospitals -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century
Official Date:	June 2018
Dates:	Date Event June 2018 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of History
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Marland, Hilary
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	xi, 407 leaves : charts
Language:	eng

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads