On 9 October Mike Palij quoted Joan Didier's comparing the advice in a current psychiatric book unfavourably with that of Emily Post. I was reminded yesterday (Sunday) that plain commonsense and humanity in dealing with severe emotional distress and mental disorders did not await the arrival of modern psychiatry. Here is a brief review from the London Sunday Times on the publication of the paperback edition of a biography of Mary Lamb, *The Devil Kissed Her*, by Kathy Watson:
"In 1796, Mary Lamb murdered her mother with a knife. She was placed in the care of her younger brother Charles, and they went on to share their home, friends and work for nearly 40 years. They wrote the children's classic *Tales from Shakespeare* together, ran a literary agency, and had a salon frequented by Coleridge, Wordsworth and Hazlitt. However, Mary's bouts of mania and depression meant that she was incarcerated in a mental hospital for several months each year. Her moving story is vividly told." The picture one generally gets of the way the mentally ill were treated in past eras tends to emphasise the more brutal and uncomprehending elements. That evidently is by no means the whole story, as the moving account of Mary Lamb's being allowed into the care of her brother after committing matricide indicates. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.human-nature.com/esterson/index.html http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=10 http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=57 http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=58 http://www.srmhp.org/0202/review-01.html --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
