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Loading... Attending Madness: At Work in the Australian Colonial Asylum.by Lee-Ann Monk
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Probably not fair to review this one as I know the author personally and have been friends with her since it's inception. However, I found it insightful and written in a style that made it easy for a non-academic such as myself to access the fantastically detailed research Lee-Ann has done. A landmark work as there is currently no other book covering this topic in existence. I really found it a fascinating look at gender and class politics, as well as an illuminating account of the work of "attendants" in the mental health system in colonial Victoria. Lee-Ann paints a vivid picture of the people who worked with the mentally ill in what was definitely a new profession in the late 1800s. Absolutely worth the time and effort I put in to finish it. I am glad I gave it my full attention because it paid out in spades. ( ) no reviews | add a review
He is what we would call a very good attendant, who would not run away or flinch from any patient, but would try to have his orders carried out if possible. Such was the view of William Coady, attendant to the insane in the British settler colony of Victoria, Australia in the 1870's. This book is a history of William Coady ́s occupation, a history asylum work and workers in nineteenth-century Australia. It considers not only who attendants were and why they worked in the asylum, but also how they and others variously defined the very good attendant. Colonial asylum advocates imagined the attendant as an archetype, drawing on ideas from Britain about the nature of insanity and its treatment. In exploring the articulation of these ideas in a specific colonial context and their effect on the colonial asylum workplace, Lee-Ann Monk makes an important contribution to the international history of the asylum. She also opens new dimensions in the history of this occupation, on which the fate of patients very much depended, by analysing attendants ́ efforts to construct an occupational identity and give meaning to their work, thus providing new insights into their sense of themselves and their occupation. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)362.21Social sciences Social problems and services; associations Social problems of & services to groups of people Mentally illLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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