ABSTRACT
The critics have questioned both the assumption that there is a distinctive group of illnesses of the mind, and the relevance of medical expertise, with its focus on the body, to the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses. In order to explore the experience of mental illness in this period, he author highlights three areas of transformation: the locus of treatment, the framing of mental illness, and types of treatment. Developed by the profession in response to the problems with which it is called upon to deal, the categories also frame lay constructions of mental illness. During the twentieth century there have been marked changes in the framing of mental illness, not least in the broadening of the boundaries of professional, psychiatric interest from the narrow category of lunacy to a wider terrain of mental illness. The impact of Freudian ideas was of even greater significance to the transformations occurred in the framing of mental illness during twentieth century.
