First published in 1972, A History of the Mental Health Services is a revised and abridged version of both Lunacy, Law and Conscience and Mental Health and Social Policy, rewriting the material from the end of the Second World War to the passing of the Mental Health Act 1959, and adding a new section which runs from 1959 to the Social Services Act 1970. The story starts with the first legislative mention of the ‘furiously and dangerously mad’ as a class for whom some treatment should be provided, traces the development of reform and experiment in the nineteenth century, and the creation of the asylum system, and ends in the age of Goffman and Laing and Szasz with the virtual disappearance of the system. The book will be of interest to students of mental health, sociology, social policy, health policy and law.
