[D66] BOOK: Psychiatry and the Politics of Not Knowing

[René Oudeweg]

<http://sociology.unm.edu/>

<https://www.amazon.com/Heels-Ignorance-Psychiatry-Politics-Knowing/dp/022661638X?SubscriptionId=AKIAIA3UEVTLIG7AIKFA&tag=&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=022661638X> 

Buy on Amazon 
<https://www.amazon.com/Heels-Ignorance-Psychiatry-Politics-Knowing/dp/022661638X?SubscriptionId=AKIAIA3UEVTLIG7AIKFA&tag=&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=022661638X> 



  On the Heels of Ignorance: Psychiatry and the Politics of Not Knowing

(University of Chicago Press, 2019)

Psychiatry has always aimed to peer deep into the human mind, daring to 
cast light on its darkest corners and untangle its thorniest knot, often 
invoking the latest medical science in doing so. But, as Owen Whooley’s 
sweeping new history tell us, the history of American psychiatry is 
really a history of ignorance. /On the Heels of Ignorance /begins 
with//American psychiatry’s formal beginnings in the 1840s and moves 
through two centuries of constant struggle simply to define and redefine 
mental illness, to say nothing of the best way to treat it. Whooley’s 
book is no anti-psychiatric screed, however; instead, he reveals a field 
that has muddled along through periodic reinventions and conflicting 
agendas of curiosity, compassion, and professional striving. /On the 
Heels of Ignorance /draws from intellectual history and the sociology of 
professions to portray an ongoing human effort to make sense of complex 
mental phenomena using an imperfect set of tools, with recurrent tragic 
results.


      Hear an interview
      <https://newbooksnetwork.com/owen-whooley-on-the-heels-of-ignorance-psychiatry-and-the-politics-of-not-knowing-u-chicago-press-2019/>I
      gave on the book from the podcast, New Books in Sociology.

*Praise for /On the Heels of Ignorance/*

“/On the Heels of Ignorance /is a substantial achievement, addressing a 
core puzzle in the history of psychiatry. Whooley’s gambit is to narrate 
psychiatry from the point of view of its professional persistence in the 
face of recurrent failure. Whooley is an engaging writer and his book is 
an exciting one, with compelling analysis well positioned to make a real 
impact.” *Aaron Panofsky, author o/f Misbehaving Science/*

“Essential reading for anyone interested in psychiatry’s past fortunes 
and future prospects. Whooley gives us an arresting interpretation of 
American psychiatry’s history, challenges, and resiliency, from its 
origins in the nineteenth-century asylum to its recent embrace of 
neuroscience. In boldly conceived episodes, Whooley deftly shows how 
psychiatrists repeatedly and optimistically reinvented their discipline 
when faced with professional crises.” *Elizabeth Lunbeck, author of/The 
Americanization of Narcissism/*

“Whooley convincingly shows that the study of ignorance can produce 
understanding. Seeing the history of psychiatry through its efforts to 
manage ignorance is at once new and entirely convincing. The 
controversies of twenty-first-century psychiatry look very much like 
those of the nineteenth century, once you are prepared to see the 
connections and appreciate much of the unknowability of mental 
suffering. Whooley’s path is one worth taking.” *Jason Schnittker, 
University of Pennsylvania*

“Over the past five decades, social scientists have examined the history 
and development of psychiatry largely as a series of triumphs or reforms 
or as a form of social control. In this provocative and well-researched 
book, Whooley provides a sharp challenge and turns these perspectives on 
their head by reinterpreting the development of psychiatry as 
fundamentally ‘the collective management of ignorance.’” *Peter Conrad, 
Brandeis University*

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