Mad by the Millions

Mental Disorders and the Early Years of the World Health Organization

• Author(s): Harry Yi-Jui Wu,
• Publisher: MIT Press
• Pages: 240
• ISBN_10: 0262045389
  ISBN_13: 9780262045384
  
• Language: en
• Categories: Psychology / History , Psychology / Cognitive Neuroscience & Cognitive Neuropsychology , Medical / Psychiatry / General ,

Description:... The World Health Organization's post-World War II work on the epidemiology and classification of mental disorders and its vision of a "world psyche."

In 1946, the World Health Organization undertook a project in social psychiatry that aimed to discover the epidemiology and classification of mental disorders. In Mad by the Millions, Harry Y-Jui Wu examines the WHO's ambitious project, arguing that it was shaped by the postwar faith in technology and expertise and the universalizing vision of a "world psyche." Wu shows that the WHO's idealized scientific internationalism laid the foundations of today's highly highly metricalized global mental health system.