Abstract
“If sociologists of medicine are truly serious about accurately researching issues of health and illness,” argues Bruce Cohen, “then there is an urgent need to contextualise our work in a set of historical and contemporary power relations.” The sociologist of mental health sets about doing just this through a Marxist analysis of the modern mental health system, from Pinel’s unchaining of the “mad” in the eighteenth century to the “drugs revolution” of the twentieth century. Applying Marx’s theory of historical materialism, Cohen demonstrates how health philosophies such as moral treatment, mental disorders including “masturbatory insanity,” and “treatments” like electroshock therapy can all be understood as fulfilling specific economic and ideological prerogatives of industrial capitalism for compliant and productive workers.
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Cohen, B.M.Z. (2016). Marxist Theory and Mental Illness: A Critique of Political Economy. In: Psychiatric Hegemony. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46051-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46051-6_2
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