Understanding Mental Health and Mental Illness: An Exploration of the Past, Present, and Future

The question of whether someone is psychologically healthy or mentally ill, and the fundamental nature of mental health underlying that question has been debated in cultural, academic, and clinical settings for millennia. This book provides an overview of how people have conceptualized and understood mental illness through the ages.

The book begins by looking at mental illness in humanity’s evolutionary past then moves through the major historical epochs: the mythological, the Classical, th...