Brandon was brought up by a brutal aunt who subjected her to beatings from the age of three: these began to form the basis for her childhood fantasies. Brandon showed an extraordinary understanding of her own condition and of her sexuality she was one of the first British patients whose case notes diagnosed her as having 'Freudian' problems. One of the most striking cases is that of Celia Brandon, a 'small, stout woman with brown hair and clear, rather yellow skin' admitted for observation to the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in 1915. She refused to accept the charge of insanity and was sentenced to hard labour 'in perpetuity'. This was part of the extraordinary case of Henriette Cornier, a nursemaid who calmly sliced off the head of her 19-month-old charge and threw it out of the window because 'the idea presented itself'. In 1825, in Paris came the first instance of a doctor testifying that if a patient insisted she was not mad, this proved that she must be. Breast-feeding women were seen as having 'lactational insanity' (it was thought, quite literally, that they had milk on the brain). The view of female patients throughout the 1800s would be hilarious were it not so disturbing.

Philippe Pinel, the doctor in charge of the Parisian madhouses during the French Revolution, invented the bedside manner and was the first to look for patterns in the patient's life story that might explain what he called their 'mental alienation'. It is astonishing to think that only a few hundred years ago, doctors did not imagine that their interaction with the patient had any effect or importance neither did they regard anything the patient told them about their condition as being especially relevant. The early chapters on the birth of the mental health professions are fascinating and addictive. The premise from the outset is clear: Appignanesi does not see women as inherently mad, bad or sad but is fascinated as to why, over the years, we have continued to classify them in these categories far more often than we do men.Īs philosopher Ian Hacking puts it: 'In every generation, there are quite firm rules on how to behave when you are crazy.' But why have women been particularly subject to these rules? And in the past 50 years, has one important promise of the feminist project come true - that being able to have a profession and a less restricted life mean that women are less prone to mental illness? Or are there life events unique to the female experience that make women more susceptible to mental health problems? It asks whether the contents of a woman's head need be regarded as any different to those of a man. This is a book with a broad scope and a bold aim: to look at the history of the study of the female mind over the past two centuries.

Lisa appignanesi mad bad and sad