Description
To fend off American and European imperialism in the nineteenth century, Japan strove to strengthen itself by drawing on the most updated ideas and practices from around the world. By the 1880s, this included the introduction of Western-derived psychiatry and its ideas about mental illness. The first Japanese psychiatrists claimed that mental illnesses required medical treatment in specialized institutions rather than confinement at home, as had been common practice. Yet the state implemented no social welfare policies to make new medical services more accessible and affordable to the public. The family, especially women, thus continued to carry the burden of caring for those considered mad. Madness in the Family examines how the family in Japan came to be seen as the natural provider of care for those suffering from mental illnesses. It centers on the experiences of women and families, which have long been obscured by the voices of male psychiatrists, state officials, and lawmakers. H. Yumi Kim traces how women and families negotiated a dizzying array of claims about madness and its proper management across various settings. In the countryside, psychiatrists tried to refute the notion that fox spirits could cause madness, and the government regulated the use of cage-like structures inside homes. In cities, a booming medical marketplace spread ideas about feminized illnesses such as hysteria, and female defendants were evaluated for menstruation-induced disorders. As women and families navigated this shifting therapeutic landscape, they produced their own gendered approaches to madness that would take precedence over the claims of psychiatry, the law, and the state in everyday life. Decoupling the history of mental illness from the discipline and institutions of psychiatry, Madness in the Family reveals the power and fragilities of gender, kinship, and care in the creation of different modes of caring for and understanding mental illness that persist to this day.
About the Author
H. Yumi Kim is Assistant Professor of History at The Johns Hopkins University.
Reviews
Kim's work uncovers the fascinating world of care for the mentally ill in modern Japan, when the advent of psychiatry was transforming the local cosmology of madness. Illuminating how psychiatric uptake was challenged by the fraught terrain of devotion, love, and abuse in the intimate world of family-based care, Kim's analysis has great relevance for understanding what is happening today when care for the mentally distressed is shifting from institutions back to the community. * Junko Kitanaka, author of Depression in Japan: Psychiatric Cures for a Society in Distress *
In a series of vivid examinations of the key sites of psychiatric intervention in Japan, Madness in the Family recasts our understanding of the modern medicalization of mental health. Attending to the voices of the patients themselves, Kim shows that families and village communities as much as institutions and experts defined and framed illness. Her focus on the domestic sphere further reveals how both pathology and care were persistently gendered throughout the twentieth century. This perceptive study offers a fresh contribution to the history of medicine and the history of the family, as well as to the social history of Japan. * Jordan Sand, Georgetown University *
Through a compelling array of sources and deft analysis, H. Yumi Kim excavates a narrative that has so often been marginalized in the history of psychiatry: how families, and women in particular, remained central to defining madness and caring for the mentally ill. Nuanced and engagingly written, Madness in the Family is not just a powerful reassessment of medicine and kinship in modern Japan, but an empathetic reminder that everyday acts of compassion and care are pivotal for the functioning of the home, community, and state. * Emily Baum, University of California, Irvine *
H. Yumi Kim forcefully reclaims the prime role families and women played in shaping the impact of institutions on madness, no matter whether understood as an affliction by a fox spirit or a nervous illness, managed via domestic caging or psychiatric treatment. A truly impressive achievement. * Sabine Fruhstuck, University of California, Santa Barbara *
Madness in the Family focuses on late nineteenth and early twentieth century Japan-a key transitional moment in the changes brought to mental care-when psychiatrists who had been trained abroad returned with new knowledge and intellectual orientations to madness and therapies that came to be used in new institutions. Yumi Kim does a masterful job of covering that fascinating story, but the main contribution of this book is the laser-like focus it brings to the central role played by women and family-based care in that history. Her evocative narrative reveals what can be learned from paying close attention to the everyday experiences of families in the care for the afflicted. * James Robson, Harvard University *
This is such an important contribution to the field that it will be difficult to discuss the history of Japanese psychiatry from now on without Kim's book...This history is written from the viewpoint of patients and their families, focusing on issues related to women's domestic labour and caregiving, and women's bodies and physiology, a significant improvement on what has previously been lacking in research by Japanese scholars. * Akira Hashimoto, Social History of Medicine *
Kim's use of historical records of psychiatric experts interviewing women who were stigmatized as having mental illnesses is a key strength of the book...Kim's book deserves a wide audience, as it will be of interest to students of mental illness, gender, the rise of the professions, as well as modernization and post-colonial studies. As such, the book makes a significant contribution to the fields of social history of Japan, Japanese studies, and women's and gender studies. For these reasons, we highly recommend this book as an ethnographic account that is accessible, clarifying, and useful for both students and scholars alike. * Anne S. Aronsson, Social Forces *
Kim deftly shows how Japan's shifting identity and relationships with the rest of the world affected everyday experiences like living with mental illness and treating it...Although the Japanese state created institutions and public health systems that mirrored those of Western countries, it could not fully eliminate long-held ways of thinking, including ideas the state itself had created around women's roles in society. * Tanya L. Roth, Nursing Clio *
This book delivers what its title promises and far more. In keeping with the title, Kim argues strongly that despite the introduction of European psychiatry into Japan in the 19th century and the subsequent construction of psychiatric institutions, care for mental illness remained the responsibility of family, with the burden of care falling primarily on women. Whereas earlier scholarship has analyzed expertise and institutions, Kim ventures into the 'rough ground of the ordinary.' Her four substantive chapters consider fox spirits, home confinement, hysteria, and how assumptions about women's reproductive functions could win women reduced sentences in courts of law... The book thus provides rich detail on both the ambitions of the Japanese state and the limits of its control over its subjects. Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. * Choice *
We highly recommend this book as an ethnographic account that is accessible, clarifying, and useful for both students and scholars alike. * Social Forces *
This book is a detailed account of the multifaceted landscape of mental healthcare that will be of interest to historians and clinicians alike. * Harry Yi-Jui Wu, Asian Medicine 18 *
H. Yumi Kim has authored an excellent work on the history of mental illness in Japan, a topic that has received little attention in academic research and remains unknown to the general public. The book exhibits high scientific quality while remaining accessible to a wide audience interested in Japanese society and mental health issues. With its original focus on women and family, and clear, precise, and well-documented writing style, the book establishes itself as an indispensable reference in the field. * Nicolas Tajan, Asian Studies Review *
In recent years, there has been a steady increase in research on listening to the stories of people with mental disabilities, but historical research is relatively scarce....The narratives of family members, especially women, who care for the mentally ill have not been fully explored... This book, which makes us think about this point, has succeeded in opening up a valuable field in the historical research on psychiatric medicine in Japan. * Junko Nagai, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences *
Awards
Winner of Winner, John K. Fairbank Prize, American Historical Association.
Book Information
ISBN 9780197507353
Author H. Yumi Kim
Format Hardback
Page Count 248
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 476g
Dimensions(mm) 237mm * 162mm * 21mm
About the Author
H. Yumi Kim is Assistant Professor of History at The Johns Hopkins University.
Reviews
Kim's work uncovers the fascinating world of care for the mentally ill in modern Japan, when the advent of psychiatry was transforming the local cosmology of madness. Illuminating how psychiatric uptake was challenged by the fraught terrain of devotion, love, and abuse in the intimate world of family-based care, Kim's analysis has great relevance for understanding what is happening today when care for the mentally distressed is shifting from institutions back to the community. * Junko Kitanaka, author of Depression in Japan: Psychiatric Cures for a Society in Distress *
In a series of vivid examinations of the key sites of psychiatric intervention in Japan, Madness in the Family recasts our understanding of the modern medicalization of mental health. Attending to the voices of the patients themselves, Kim shows that families and village communities as much as institutions and experts defined and framed illness. Her focus on the domestic sphere further reveals how both pathology and care were persistently gendered throughout the twentieth century. This perceptive study offers a fresh contribution to the history of medicine and the history of the family, as well as to the social history of Japan. * Jordan Sand, Georgetown University *
Through a compelling array of sources and deft analysis, H. Yumi Kim excavates a narrative that has so often been marginalized in the history of psychiatry: how families, and women in particular, remained central to defining madness and caring for the mentally ill. Nuanced and engagingly written, Madness in the Family is not just a powerful reassessment of medicine and kinship in modern Japan, but an empathetic reminder that everyday acts of compassion and care are pivotal for the functioning of the home, community, and state. * Emily Baum, University of California, Irvine *
H. Yumi Kim forcefully reclaims the prime role families and women played in shaping the impact of institutions on madness, no matter whether understood as an affliction by a fox spirit or a nervous illness, managed via domestic caging or psychiatric treatment. A truly impressive achievement. * Sabine Fruhstuck, University of California, Santa Barbara *
Madness in the Family focuses on late nineteenth and early twentieth century Japan-a key transitional moment in the changes brought to mental care-when psychiatrists who had been trained abroad returned with new knowledge and intellectual orientations to madness and therapies that came to be used in new institutions. Yumi Kim does a masterful job of covering that fascinating story, but the main contribution of this book is the laser-like focus it brings to the central role played by women and family-based care in that history. Her evocative narrative reveals what can be learned from paying close attention to the everyday experiences of families in the care for the afflicted. * James Robson, Harvard University *
This is such an important contribution to the field that it will be difficult to discuss the history of Japanese psychiatry from now on without Kim's book...This history is written from the viewpoint of patients and their families, focusing on issues related to women's domestic labour and caregiving, and women's bodies and physiology, a significant improvement on what has previously been lacking in research by Japanese scholars. * Akira Hashimoto, Social History of Medicine *
Kim's use of historical records of psychiatric experts interviewing women who were stigmatized as having mental illnesses is a key strength of the book...Kim's book deserves a wide audience, as it will be of interest to students of mental illness, gender, the rise of the professions, as well as modernization and post-colonial studies. As such, the book makes a significant contribution to the fields of social history of Japan, Japanese studies, and women's and gender studies. For these reasons, we highly recommend this book as an ethnographic account that is accessible, clarifying, and useful for both students and scholars alike. * Anne S. Aronsson, Social Forces *
Kim deftly shows how Japan's shifting identity and relationships with the rest of the world affected everyday experiences like living with mental illness and treating it...Although the Japanese state created institutions and public health systems that mirrored those of Western countries, it could not fully eliminate long-held ways of thinking, including ideas the state itself had created around women's roles in society. * Tanya L. Roth, Nursing Clio *
This book delivers what its title promises and far more. In keeping with the title, Kim argues strongly that despite the introduction of European psychiatry into Japan in the 19th century and the subsequent construction of psychiatric institutions, care for mental illness remained the responsibility of family, with the burden of care falling primarily on women. Whereas earlier scholarship has analyzed expertise and institutions, Kim ventures into the 'rough ground of the ordinary.' Her four substantive chapters consider fox spirits, home confinement, hysteria, and how assumptions about women's reproductive functions could win women reduced sentences in courts of law... The book thus provides rich detail on both the ambitions of the Japanese state and the limits of its control over its subjects. Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. * Choice *
We highly recommend this book as an ethnographic account that is accessible, clarifying, and useful for both students and scholars alike. * Social Forces *
This book is a detailed account of the multifaceted landscape of mental healthcare that will be of interest to historians and clinicians alike. * Harry Yi-Jui Wu, Asian Medicine 18 *
H. Yumi Kim has authored an excellent work on the history of mental illness in Japan, a topic that has received little attention in academic research and remains unknown to the general public. The book exhibits high scientific quality while remaining accessible to a wide audience interested in Japanese society and mental health issues. With its original focus on women and family, and clear, precise, and well-documented writing style, the book establishes itself as an indispensable reference in the field. * Nicolas Tajan, Asian Studies Review *
In recent years, there has been a steady increase in research on listening to the stories of people with mental disabilities, but historical research is relatively scarce....The narratives of family members, especially women, who care for the mentally ill have not been fully explored... This book, which makes us think about this point, has succeeded in opening up a valuable field in the historical research on psychiatric medicine in Japan. * Junko Nagai, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences *
Awards
Winner of Winner, John K. Fairbank Prize, American Historical Association.
Book Information
ISBN 9780197507353
Author H. Yumi Kim
Format Hardback
Page Count 248
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 476g
Dimensions(mm) 237mm * 162mm * 21mm
