Read complete books and articles on: Insanity

Insanity - mental disorder of such severity as to render its victim incapable of managing his affairs or of conforming to social standards. Today, the term insanity is used chiefly in criminal law, to denote mental aberrations or defects that may relieve a person from the legal consequences of his or her acts. The case of Daniel McNaughtan, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity after making an assassination attempt on British prime minister Robert Peel (1834), gave rise to the modern insanity defense used in many Western nations today. In the United States, the 1954 case of Durham v. the United States led to the establishment of new rules for testing defendants. Today, psychologists may perform tests to determine whether or not the defendant is mentally stable. Such tests try to ascertain whether or not a defendant can distinguish right from wrong, and whether or not he acted on an "irresistible impulse." John Hinckley's assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan (1981) became another landmark in the history of the insanity defense. The court's initial verdict of "not guilty by reason of insanity" generated public outcry and renewed interest in the verdict of "guilty but mentally ill," which is permissible in some states. This verdict allows defendants deemed mentally ill to be hospitalized but requires them to carry out a reasonable prison sentence as well. In 1983, the Supreme Court ruled it permissable to keep a mentally ill defendant hospitalized for a term longer than the maximum sentence for the crime with which the defendant was charged. Many have contended that the insanity defense is nothing more than a legal loophole, allowing serious criminals to escape imprisonment. In fact, the plea is rarely employed in the United States, and it is estimated that less than 1% of defendants have used it successfully. Recent years have seen the restrictions surrounding insanity defense considerably narrowed, with the sole criteria for a successful plea being the determination of whether or not the defendant knew he was breaking the law.

See R. Simon and D. Aaronson, The Insanity Defense (1988); R. Porter, A Social History of Madness: The World Through the Eyes of the Insane (1989).

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14 of the Best Books and Articles on: Insanity

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Suffering Insanity: Psychoanalytic Essays on Psychosis » Read Now
by R. D. Hinshelwood. 187 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

When madness is intolerable for sufferers, how do professional carers remain sane? Psychiatric institutions have always been places of fear and awe. Madness impacts on family, friends and relatives, but also those who provide a caring environment, whether in large institutions of the past, or...
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When madness is intolerable for sufferers, how do professional carers remain sane? Psychiatric institutions have always been places of fear and awe. Madness impacts on family, friends and relatives, but also those who provide a caring environment, whether in large institutions of the past, or community care in the present. This book explores the effects of the psychotic patient's suffering on carers and the culture of psychiatric services. Suffering Insanity is arranged as three essays. The first concerns staff stress in psychiatric services, exploring how the impact of madness demands a personal resilience as well as careful professional support, which may not be forthcoming. The second essay attempts a systematic review of the nature of psychosis and the intolerable psychotic experience, which the patient attempts to evade, and which the carer must confront in the course of daily work. The third essay returns to the impact of psychosis on the psychiatric services, which frequently configure in ways which can have serious and harmful effects on the provision of care. In particular, service may succumb to an unfortunate schismatic process resulting in sterile conflict, and to an assertively scientific culture, which leads to an unwitting depersonalisation of patients. Suffering Insanity makes a powerful argument for considering care in the psychiatric services as a whole system that includes staff as well as patients; all need attention and understanding in order to deliver care in as humane a way as possible. All those working in the psychiatric services, both in large and small agencies and institutions, will appreciate that closer examination of the actual psychology and interrelations of staff, as well as patients, is essential and urgent.
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2.

A Reference Companion to the History of Abnormal Psychology A-L » Read Now
by John G. Howells, M. Livia Osborn. 576 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

...inhabitants were said to have been stricken with insanity after remaining too long in the sun watching Euripides...and his name is associated with it. ABORTIVE INSANITY...
3.

A Reference Companion to the History of Abnormal Psychology M-Z » Read Now
by John G. Howells, M. Livia Osborn. 576 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

...included books on suicide q.v. and insanity, hypnotism, psychoanalysis, alcoholism...when he was acquitted on the grounds of insanity in 1843. The House of Lords...
4.

Madness and Democracy: The Modern Psychiatric Universe » Read Now
by Marcel Gauchet, Catherine Porter, Gladys Swain. 323 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

How the insane asylum became a laboratory of democracy is revealed in this provocative look at the treatment of the mentally ill in nineteenth-century France. Political thinkers reasoned that if government was to rest in the hands of individuals, then measures should be taken to understand the...
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How the insane asylum became a laboratory of democracy is revealed in this provocative look at the treatment of the mentally ill in nineteenth-century France. Political thinkers reasoned that if government was to rest in the hands of individuals, then measures should be taken to understand the deepest reaches of the self, including the state of madness. Marcel Gauchet and Gladys Swain maintain that the asylum originally embodied the revolutionary hope of curing all the insane by saving the glimmer of sanity left in them. Their analysis of why this utopian vision failed ultimately constitutes both a powerful argument for liberalism and a direct challenge to Michel Foucault's indictment of liberal institutions.
The creation of an artificial environment was meant to encourage the mentally ill to live as social beings, in conditions that resembled as much as possible those prevailing in real life. The asylum was therefore the first instance of a modern utopian community in which a scientificallydesigned environment was supposed to achieve complete control over the minds of a whole category of human beings. Gauchet and Swain argue that t
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5.

Evil or Ill? Justifying the Insanity Defence » Read Now
by Lawrie Reznek. 331 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

Lawrie Reznek addresses these questions and more in his controversial investigation of the insanity defense in Evil or Ill ? Drawing from countless intriguing case examples, he aims to understand the concept of an excuse, and explains why the law excuses certain actions and not others. In his...
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Lawrie Reznek addresses these questions and more in his controversial investigation of the insanity defense in Evil or Ill ? Drawing from countless intriguing case examples, he aims to understand the concept of an excuse, and explains why the law excuses certain actions and not others. In his easily accessible and elegant style, he explains that in law, there exists two excuses derived from Aristotle: the excuses of ignorance and compulsion. Reznek, however proposes a third excuse - the excuse of character change. In introducing this third excuse, Reznek raises a controversial possibility - the abolition of the insanity defence.
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6.

Lunacy, Law, and Conscience, 1744-1845: The Social History of the Care of the Insane » Read Now
by Kathleen Jones. 242 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

...APPENDIX III: THE INCIDENCE OF INSANITY 224 BIBLIOGRAPHY...While the number of medical works on insanity published during this period was considerable...partisan...
7.

Mental Condition Defences in the Criminal Law » Read Now
by R. D. Mackay. 252 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

Mental condition defences have been used in several high-profile and controversial criminal trials in recent years. indeed, mental abnormality is increasingly an important yet complex source of defence within the criminal trial process. The author offers a detailed critical analysis of those...
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Mental condition defences have been used in several high-profile and controversial criminal trials in recent years. indeed, mental abnormality is increasingly an important yet complex source of defence within the criminal trial process. The author offers a detailed critical analysis of those defences within the Criminal Law where the accused relies on some form of mental abnormality as a source of defence. Topics covered include: the defences of automatism, insanity, diminished responsibility, and infanticide; self-induced incapacity; and the doctrine of fault. It also includes a chapter on unfitness to plead, which although not a defence has been included because of its important relationship to mental disorder within the criminal process. Drawing upon a wide variety of legal, psychiatric, and philosophical sources, this is a timely contribution to a controversial and complex topic.
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8.

The Insanity Defense: A Critical Assessment of Law and Policy in the Post-Hinckley Era » Read Now
by Rita J. Simon, David E. Aaronson, Judge Barrington D. Parker. 279 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

No area of criminal law has been the subject of more controversy than the insanity defense. The Insanity Defense is a clear assessment of this issue as it exists in the 1980s. It provides the reader with a basis for understanding and evaluating the legislative and judicial responses to the factors...
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No area of criminal law has been the subject of more controversy than the insanity defense. The Insanity Defense is a clear assessment of this issue as it exists in the 1980s. It provides the reader with a basis for understanding and evaluating the legislative and judicial responses to the factors that have stirred this controversy. Simon and Aaronson begin with a detailed historical overview. They discuss the necessity of expert witnesses in the actual trial and probe into the jury's role and responsibility. They describe the various movements that have been used to abolish the insanity defense, as well as assess the use and interpretation of the defense in other nations.
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9.

Court-Ordered Insanity: Interpretive Practice and Involuntary Commitment » Read Now
by James A. Holstein. 223 pgs.

...COURT-ORDERED INSANITY SOCIAL PROBLEMS AND SOCIAL ISSUES...James A. Holstein, Court-Ordered Insanity: Interpretive Practice and Involuntary...Constructing Social Problems...
10.

Insanity, Institutions and Society, 1800-1914 » Read Now
by Bill Forsythe, Joseph Melling. 330 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

This comprehensive collection provides a fascinating summary of the debates on the growth of institutional care during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Revising and revisiting Foucault, it looks at the significance of ethnicity, race and gender as well as the impact of political and cultural...
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This comprehensive collection provides a fascinating summary of the debates on the growth of institutional care during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Revising and revisiting Foucault, it looks at the significance of ethnicity, race and gender as well as the impact of political and cultural factors, throughout Britain and in a colonial context. It questions historically what it means to be mad and how, if at all, to care.
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11.

Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness » Read Now
by Otto F. Wahl. 224 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

...analyses, and even cartoons for many weeks. Insanity pleas of lesser-known defendants likewise...sitting on a jury asked to rule on an insanity plea, their reactions and...
12.

Love's Madness: Medicine, the Novel, and Female Insanity, 1800-1865 » Read Now
by Helen Small. 266 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Psychology, Entire Library

Love's Madness is an important new contribution to the interdisciplinary study of insanity. Focusing on the figure of the love-mad woman, it presents a significant reassessment of the ways in which British medical writers and novelists of the nineteenth century thought about madness, femininity, and...
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Love's Madness is an important new contribution to the interdisciplinary study of insanity. Focusing on the figure of the love-mad woman, it presents a significant reassessment of the ways in which British medical writers and novelists of the nineteenth century thought about madness, femininity, and narrative convention. The book centers around studies of novels by Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott, Charlotte Bronte, Wilkie Collins, and Charles Dickens, as well as of previously neglected writings by Charles Maturin, Lady Caroline Lamb, and Edward Bulwer-Lytton, among others.
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13.

Insanity as Redemption in Contemporary American Fiction: Inmates Running the Asylum » Read Now
by Barbara Tepa Lupack. 246 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Insanity as Redemption in Contemporary American Fiction Insanity as Redemption in Contemporary American Fiction INMATES...in- Publication Data Lupack, Barbara Tepa, 1951-...
14.

The Madness of Epic: Reading Insanity from Homer to Statius » Read Now
by Debra Hershkowitz. 346 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Psychology, Entire Library

Madness features in many ancient epics: not only do characters go mad, but madness often plays an important thematic role. This book examines the representation and poetic function of madness in epic poetry (including the work of Homer, Virgil, and Ovid), addresses the difficulty of defining...
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Madness features in many ancient epics: not only do characters go mad, but madness often plays an important thematic role. This book examines the representation and poetic function of madness in epic poetry (including the work of Homer, Virgil, and Ovid), addresses the difficulty of defining madness, and discusses how each epic explores the theme in a unique way.
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