Mental Health and Canadian Society: Historical Perspectives

Brenda A. LeFranзois is a critical psychologist and a faculty member,
School of Social Work, Laurentian University.

This collection of essays provides a unique contribution to
mental-health discourse in Canada from a historical perspective.
Moreover, this text also provides a major contribution to the growing
literature internationally on the history of mental health. The contents
of the chapters range from an analysis of 19th- and 20th-century issues
such as asylum tourism, the effects of institutionalization on families,
patient labour, trends in institutionalization over time, the first
psychiatrists used as expert witnesses in court, the plight of
Aboriginal patients, the use of sterilization, and early research in
psychiatry. Although the book attempts to provide historical analysis
with a national focus, the chapters mainly cover Ontario and Quebec but
also include chapters relating to British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and
Saskatchewan.

For the most part, this collection of essays provides a much-needed
critical perspective on the history of psychiatry in Canada. However,
the writing in some chapters seems more embedded in the philosophy of
the medical model while others clearly approach their research from a
social control perspective. For example, some of the authors use terms
such as mentally ill, mental disorder, mental illness, and mentally
disturbed without qualifying the language as based in, and supportive
of, psychiatry. In this way, the acceptance of the medical model, as
well as the unquestioned existence of medical conditions of the mind,
appears to be embedded not only within the current practice of
psychiatry but also within the humanities and current historical
research. Other authors appear to be more conscious of this politically
charged bias, with some engaging with psychiatric survivors in their
writing.

Mental Health and Canadian Society is a must-read for anyone interested
in the history of psychiatry in Canada. Mental-health practitioners and
psychiatric survivors may also find value in reading about, and learning
from, the historical accounts of the profession detailed in the volume.