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The Development of Early 20th Century Psychiatry and Its Failure

The Incapacity of Psychiatry to Alleviate Virginia Woolf’s Suffering

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Virginia Woolf and Neuropsychiatry

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Abstract

Leonard Woolf (1964) has recorded the names of all the doctors whom Virginia consulted during her several breakdowns, including the lengthy episode of 1913−1915 (Woolf 1964, p. 160). These were George Savage, Maurice Craig, T. B. Hyslop, Henry Head and Maurice Wright. The first three were Harley Street (London) specialists and successive superintendents of London’s Bethlehem Hospital (‘Bedlam’). They all concurred that she had ‘neurasthenia’. What is neurasthenia and how did these leading psychiatrists treat it?

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Brain and Mind Research Institute, Camperdown, NSW, Australia

    Maxwell Bennett

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  1. Maxwell Bennett
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Bennett, M. (2013). The Development of Early 20th Century Psychiatry and Its Failure. In: Virginia Woolf and Neuropsychiatry. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5748-6_2

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