Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T09:07:28.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Anthropological perspectives on the trajectory from institutionalisation to community care in Irish psychiatry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2020

B. D. Kelly Open the ORCID record for B. D. Kelly [Opens in a new window]
B. D. Kelly*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity Centre for Health Sciences, Tallaght University Hospital, Dublin, D24 NR0A, Ireland
*
*Address for correspondence: B. D. Kelly, Department of Psychiatry, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity Centre for Health Sciences, Tallaght University Hospital, DublinD24 NR0A, Ireland. (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The trajectory of the anthropology of Irish psychiatry, like the trajectory of Irish psychiatry itself, is indelibly shaped by the history of Irelandʼs mental hospitals. This paper focuses on three works concerning the anthropology of psychiatry in Ireland: Nancy Scheper-Hughesʼs book, Saints Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland, an anthropological study (1977/2001); Eileen Kaneʼs paper, ‘Stereotypes and Irish identity: mental illness as a cultural frame’, from Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review (1986) and Michael D’Arcyʼs conference paper, ‘The hospital and the Holy Spirit: psychotic subjectivity and institutional returns in Dublin, Ireland’ (2015), based on his PhD dissertation. All three publications explore the relationship between institutional and community psychiatric care in Ireland, concluding with the work of D’Arcy which, like much good anthropology, is rooted in the lived experience of mental illness and combines deep awareness of the past with tolerance of multiple, ostensibly contradictory narratives in the present.

Keywords

AnthropologyIrelandmental disorderspsychiatry
Type
Perspective Piece
Information
Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine , Volume 39 , Issue 2: Themed Issue: Psychiatric Anthropology , June 2022 , pp. 121 - 130
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The College of Psychiatrists of Ireland

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anonymous (2016). Economist with much to say on how Irish society works. Irish Times, 28 May.Google Scholar
Blake, B, Halpenny, JV, O’Brien, PF, Ní Nualláin, M, O’Hare, A, Walsh, D (1984). The incidence of mental illness in Ireland: patients contacting psychiatric services in three Irish counties. Irish Journal of Psychiatry 5, 23–29.Google Scholar
Bradshaw, JS (1983). The yank in the corner. Irish Times, 15 August.Google Scholar
Brennan, D (2012). A theoretical exploration of institution-based mental health care in Ireland. In Asylums, Mental Health Care and the Irish, 1800–2010 (ed. Prior, P. M.), pp. 287–315. Irish Academic Press: Dublin and Portland, Oregon.Google Scholar
Brennan, D (2014). Irish Insanity, 1800–2000. Routledge: London and New York.Google Scholar
Brody, H (1973). Inishkillane: Change and Decline in the West of Ireland. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Cabot, MR (1990). The incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia in the Republic of Ireland. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 25, 210–215.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clare, A (1991). The mad Irish? In Mental Health in Ireland (ed. Keane, C.), pp. 4–17. Gill and Macmillan and Radio Telefís Éireann: Dublin.Google Scholar
Commission of Inquiry on Mental Illness (1967). Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Mental Illness. The Stationery Office: Dublin.Google Scholar
Cox, C (2012). Negotiating Insanity in the Southeast of Ireland, 1820–1900. Manchester University Press: Manchester and New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Arcy, M (2015). The hospital and the Holy Spirit: psychotic subjectivity and institutional returns in Dublin, Ireland. Society for Psychological Anthropology 10 April.Google Scholar
D’Arcy, M (2018). Uncertain adherence: psychosis, anti-psychosis, and medicated subjectivity in Dublin, Ireland (PhD dissertation). University of California: Berkeley and San Francisco.Google Scholar
D’Arcy, M (2019). ‘It tastes like order’: psychotic evidence for antipsychotic efficacy and medicated subjectivity. Ethos 47, 89–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dein, S, Bhui, KS (2013). At the crossroads of anthropology and epidemiology: current research in cultural psychiatry in the UK. Transcultural Psychiatry 50, 769–791.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunne, BD, Robinson, K, Pettigrew, J (2018). A case study of the development of occupational therapy at St. Patrickʼs Hospital Dublin, 1935–1969. Irish Journal of Occupational Therapy 46, 31–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fahy, TJ (1985). Is psychosis endemic in western Ireland? American Journal of Psychiatry 142, 998–999.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Finnane, M (1981). Insanity and the Insane in Post-Famine Ireland. Croom Helm: London.Google Scholar
Finnane, M (1985). Asylums, families and the state. History Workshop Journal 20, 134–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Healy, D (1996). Irish psychiatry in the twentieth century. In 150 Years of British Psychiatry. Volume II: The Aftermath (ed. Freeman, H. and Berrios, G. E.), pp. 268–291. Athlone Press: London and Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Higgins, MD (1968). Mental illness. Irish Times, 19 March.Google Scholar
Hockings, P (1975). Book review: inishkillane: change and decline in the West of Ireland. American Journal of Sociology 80, 1089–1090.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmquist, K (1990). Studies show lower rate of schizophrenia. Irish Times, 19 October.Google Scholar
Kane, E (1979). Is rural Ireland blighted? Irish Press, 13 December.Google Scholar
Kane, E (1981). Reply to Ballybran. Irish Times, 13 April.Google Scholar
Kane, E (1986). Stereotypes and Irish identity: mental illness as a cultural frame. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 75, 539–551.Google Scholar
Keatinge, C (1987a). Community factors influencing psychiatric hospital utilization in rural and urban Ireland. Community Mental Health Journal 23, 192–203.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keatinge, C (1987b). Schizophrenia in rural Ireland: a case of service overutilization. International Journal of Social Psychiatry 33, 186–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keatinge, C (1988). Psychiatric admissions for alcoholism, neuroses and schizophrenia in rural and urban Ireland. International Journal of Social Psychiatry 34, 58–69.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kelleher, MJ (1975). Possible differences in mental health needs between rural and urban society in Ireland. Journal of the Irish Medical Association 68, 337–339.Google Scholar
Kelly, BD (2016). Hearing Voices: The History of Psychiatry in Ireland. Irish Academic Press: Dublin.Google Scholar
Kelly, BD (2017a). Ego, id, and Ireland. Lancet Psychiatry 4, 281–282.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kelly, BD (2017b). Hearing voices: lessons from the history of psychiatry in Ireland. Irish Medical Journal 110, 537.Google ScholarPubMed
Kendler, KS, McGuire, M, Gruenberg, AM, O’Hare, A, Spellman, M, Walsh, D (1993). The Roscommon Family Study: I. Methods, diagnosis of probands, and risk of schizophrenia in relatives. Archives of General Psychiatry 50, 527–540.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kleinman, A (1980). Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland Between Anthropology, Medicine, and Psychiatry. University of California Press: Berkeley, Los Angeles and London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleinman, A (1988). Rethinking Psychiatry. Free Press: New York.Google Scholar
Kleinman, A, Good, B (1985). Introduction: culture and depression. In Culture and Depression: Studies in the Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry of Affect and Disorder (ed. Kleinman, A. and Good, B.), pp. 1–33. University of California Press: Berkeley, Los Angeles and London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGrath, J, Saha, S, Chant, D, Welham, J (2008). Schizophrenia: a concise overview of incidence, prevalence, and mortality. Epidemiologic Reviews 30, 67–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ní Nualláin, M, O’Hare, A, Walsh, D (1987). Incidence of schizophrenia in Ireland. Psychological Medicine 17, 943–948.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nowlan, D (1979). Death by suppression. Irish Times, 4 August.Google Scholar
O Freini, S (1980). Rural blight. Irish Press, 4 January.Google Scholar
O’Hare, A, Walsh, D (1981). The three-county schizophrenia study: a study of the prevalence and incidence of schizophrenia and an assessment of its clinical and social outcome in the Republic of Ireland. In Prospective Longitudinal Research: An Empirical Basis for the Primary Prevention of Psychosocial Disorders (ed. Mednick, S. A. , Baert, A. E. and Phillips Bachmann, B.), pp. 247–249. Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe: Oxford, New York, Toronto and Melbourne.Google Scholar
Pye, P (1983). The yank in the corner. Irish Times, 15 August.Google Scholar
Robins, J (1986). Fools and Mad: A History of the Insane in Ireland. Institute of Public Administration: Dublin.Google Scholar
Roch, EA (2017). Anthropology and its relevance to psychiatry. Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine 34, 85–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sapir, E (1932). Cultural anthropology and psychiatry. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 27, 229–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saris, AJ (1996). Mad kings, proper houses, and an asylum in rural Ireland. American Anthropologist 98, 539–554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saris, AJ (2008). An uncertain dominion: Irish psychiatry, methadone, and the treatment of opiate abuse. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 32, 259–277.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sartorius, N, Jablensky, A, Korten, A, Ernberg, G, Anker, M, Cooper, JE, Day, R (1986). Early manifestations and first-contact incidence of schizophrenia in different cultures: a preliminary report on the initial evaluation phase of the WHO Collaborative Study on determinants of outcome of severe mental disorders. Psychological Medicine 16, 909–928.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheper-Hughes, N (1977/2001). Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland (Twentieth Anniversary Edition). University of California Press: Berkeley, Los Angeles and London.Google Scholar
Scheper-Hughes, N (1981). Reply to ‘Ballybran’. Irish Times, 21 February.Google Scholar
Scheper-Hughes, N (1990). Three propositions for a critically applied medical anthropology. Social Science and Medicine 30, 189–197.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scheper-Hughes, N, Lovell, AM (1986). Breaking the circuit of social control: lessons in public psychiatry from Italy and Franco Basaglia. Social Science and Medicine 23, 159–178.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Torrey, EF (1985). Is psychosis endemic in western Ireland? Reply. American Journal of Psychiatry 142, 999.Google Scholar
Torrey, EF (1994). The prevalence of schizophrenia in Ireland. Archives of General Psychiatry 51, 513.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Torrey, EF, McGuire, M, O’Hare, A, Walsh, D, Spellman, MP (1984). Endemic psychosis in western Ireland. American Journal of Psychiatry 141, 966–970.Google ScholarPubMed
Viney, M (1980). Geared for a gale. Irish Times, 24 September.Google Scholar
Viney, M (1983). The yank in the corner. Irish Times, 6 August.Google Scholar
Waddington, J, Youssef, HA, Kinsella, A (1995). The prevalence of schizophrenia in Ireland: readdressing the enigma. Archives of General Psychiatry 52, 509.Google ScholarPubMed
Walsh, D (1992). The ups and downs of schizophrenia in Ireland. Irish Journal of Psychiatry 13, 12–16.Google Scholar
Walsh, D, Kendler, KS (1994). The prevalence of schizophrenia in Ireland – reply. Archives of General Psychiatry 51, 513–515.Google Scholar
Walsh, D, Kendler, KS (1995). The prevalence of schizophrenia in Ireland: readdressing the enigma – reply. Archives of General Psychiatry 52, 509.Google Scholar
Walsh, D, O’Hare, A, Blake, B, Halpenny, JV, O’Brien, PF (1980). The treated prevalence of mental illness in the Republic of Ireland – the three-county case register study. Psychological Medicine 10, 465–470.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walsh, D, Walsh, B (1967). Hospitalized psychiatric morbidity in Ireland: a suggested approach. British Journal of Psychiatry 113, 675–676.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walsh, D, Walsh, B (1968). Some influences on the intercounty variation in Irish psychiatric hospitalization rates. British Journal of Psychiatry 114, 15–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Webb, M (1990). Whatʼs Irish about psychiatry?. Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine 7, 7–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Youssef, HA, Kinsella, A, Waddington, JL (1991). Evidence for geographical variations in the prevalence of schizophrenia in rural Ireland. Archives of General Psychiatry 48, 254–258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed