The history of psychiatry: an opportunity for self-reflection and interdisciplinary dialogue. Essay review

"Can you recommend a good one volume history of psychiatry?" I am often asked this question, being a psychiatric and psychoanalytic clinician who has also been deeply involved in the history of psychiatry, as a writer and as a teacher. "Single authored or multiple authored?" I ask in return and explain that if single authored the answer is no; if multiple authored I respond, "You have to await the publication of the huge encyclopedic volume(s), edited by John Gach and Edwin Wallace, sometime in the next few years. That 'definitive' work will not be definitive for very long; neither will it be inexpensive nor light reading, either in heft or in style." "What about Zilboorg's History of Medical Psychology?-I remember it as readable, portable, and quotable," my student or colleague continues. To that I reply, "Definitely worth reading, but you will have to do a lot of other reading to fill in the important omissions, to correct the errors of fact and interpretation, and to understand the author's unquestioned assumptions and biases." "Erwin Ackernecht's Short History of Psychiatry?" "Good book, amazing what's packed into it, but it really is short. If you read German very well, there is Der Wahnsinn by Leibbrand and Wettley, which would serve you better, but that is a huge book with small print, and for that too you would have to do a lot of extra reading to fill in gaps and to understand their biases."