Madness on the Couch: Blaming the Victim in the Heyday of Psychoanalysis

In the golden age of "talk therapy," the 1950s and 1960s, psychotherapists saw no limit to what they could do. Believing they had already explained the origins of war, homosexuality, anti-Semitism, and a host of neurotic ailments, they set out to conquer one of mankind's oldest and fiercest foes, mental illness. In Madness on the Couch, veteran science writer Edward Dolnick tells the tragic story of that confrontation.

It is a vivid, compelling tale that is told here for the first time. Doln...