Lexicon · History
A short history of modern psychiatry — and its critics
A reading list spanning deinstitutionalization, the recovery movement, peer support, and Mad Studies.
Open Excellence10 min read
Modern psychiatry's institutional history matters because the present system was shaped by deinstitutionalization, the recovery movement, the rise and partial fall of biological psychiatry, and the increasingly organized service-user and Mad Studies traditions.
Open Excellence (formerly the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care) maintains an accessible overview of the recovery movement; the Hearing Voices Network and the National Empowerment Center are useful primary sources for the service-user-led tradition.
Mental Hum's library is a curated index of authoritative third-party resources. The summary above is our own framing; the full information lives at the source.
A note on this article
Mental Hum publishes general education, not medical advice. If something here reflects your own experience, please consider speaking to a clinician. If you are in crisis, call or text 988.