Psychological Classification and Diagnosis in Asylum Statistics, 1800 - 1948, 1st ed. 2024 The British Table of the Forms of Insanity Mental Health in Historical Perspective Series

This book provides a detailed examination of the questions around psychological diagnosis and asylum statistics that occupied debates from the 1840s to the middle of the twentieth century. Was insanity one disorder with different forms or a set of distinct natural kinds that each had different causes, symptoms, and outlooks? Was it possible to establish standard terms of diagnosis that could provide a scientific basis to psychological diagnosis? Could asylum statistics provide data revealing the nature of insanity - or did the inheritance of insanity render classification of the insanities a worthless endeavour? Taking a closer look at these questions, the author explores how they shaped asylum statistics and psychological diagnosis, as well as the presentation of diagnostic data in public health reports issued by lunacy administration.

In examining an uncharted episode in the history of psychiatry, this book provides an overview of the ways that mental health statistics, terms of psychological diagnosis, and data collection procedures were shaped by asylum practices, mental health legislation, and lunacy administration. It explores the links between asylum governance and the clinic, arguing that many of the vital factors behind the development of psychological diagnosis in asylum statistics came from beyond the clinic, providing valuable reading for scholars of psychiatry, and the social history of medicine and public health.

Kevin Matthew Jones is a lecturer in the Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science, at the University of Leeds, UK. He has conducted research on factors shaping public data and the modern history of medicine at the National Archives and the University of Birmingham. Additionally, he has published research on the history of psychology, the history of medicine, and the integrated history and philosophy of science.