Shrinks

A world-renowned psychiatrist reveals the fascinating story of psychiatry's origins, demise and redemption.

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 reveals in his extraordinary and eye-opening book, the path to legitimacy for 'the black sheep of medicine' has been anything but smooth.

In Shrinks, 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 since the Second World War as a science-driven profession that saves lives.

With fascinating case studies and portraits of the luminaries of the field, from Sigmund Freud to Eric Kandel, Shrinks is a gripping and illuminating read. It is also an urgent call-to-arms to dispel the stigma surrounding mental illness and to start treating it as a disease rather than a state of mind.