Fiction and psychiatry

The role of the humanities in medicine, especially mental health, is now well established. The importance of the subjective experience of people in the clinical encounter; the values and meanings that influence and determine how healthcare decisions are made and responded to; and the degree to which language pervades, structures, limits or enriches communication within the clinical space, are now explicit. This edited book extends, deepening our appreciation and understanding, the ways in which context, history, and politics impact on conceptional notions of madness. Furthermore, it demonstrates the capacity of literary theory to not only reflect but also to refract the realities that underlie behaviours and experiences termed madness. Finally, as if to make the point clear that the role of literature is not merely theoretical, it ends with a section on the instrumental uses of literature in clinical practice.