Anxiety: A Short History (Johns Hopkins Biographies of Disease) - Softcover

Horwitz, Allan V. V.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 142141080X ISBN 13: 9781421410807

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013

Synopsis

Fears, phobias, neuroses, and anxiety disorders from ancient times to the present.

More people today report feeling anxious than ever before—even while living in relatively safe and prosperous modern societies. Almost one in five people experiences an anxiety disorder each year, and more than a quarter of the population admits to an anxiety condition at some point in their lives. Here Allan V. Horwitz, a sociologist of mental illness and mental health, narrates how this condition has been experienced, understood, and treated through the ages—from Hippocrates, through Freud, to today.

Anxiety is rooted in an ancient part of the brain, and our ability to be anxious is inherited from species far more ancient than humans. Anxiety is often adaptive: it enables us to respond to threats. But when normal fear yields to what psychiatry categorizes as anxiety disorders, it becomes maladaptive. As Horwitz explores the history and multiple identities of anxiety—melancholia, nerves, neuroses, phobias, and so on—it becomes clear that every age has had its own anxieties and that culture plays a role in shaping how anxiety is expressed.

About this title

About the Author

Allan V. Horwitz (PRINCETON, NJ) is the Board of Governors and Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology and the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research at Rutgers University. He is the author of DSM: A History of Psychiatry's Bible, PTSD: A Short History, Anxiety: A Short History, and Creating Mental Illness.

Edition details

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 142141080X
• ISBN 13: 9781421410807
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208