Introduction

Psychiatry is a controversial institution. There may be many reasons for this, from regular scandals about its practice to its interlinking with the law. The reason that concerns us here is the nature of mental illness as a social phenomenon. Debate and criticism on this issue are to be found largely among academics from professional psychiatric backgrounds, and the academic disciplines of history, anthropology, sociology and philosophy. Controversy arises from a number of sources: from the polarisation between those arguing for a social or for a physiological aetiology; from efforts to define the essential nature of mental illness; from historical and anthropological data that appear to show variance in the nature of mental illness; and from arguments about the nature of minds and bodies.