In the Shadow of Diagnosis: Psychiatric Power and Queer Life

by Regina G. Kunzel

A look at the history of psychiatry’s foundational impact on the lives of queer and gender-variant people.
 
In the mid-twentieth century, American psychiatrists proclaimed homosexuality a mental disorder, one that was treatable and amenable to cure.  Drawing on a collection of previously unexamined case files from St. Elizabeths Hospital, In the Shadow of Diagnosis explores the encounter between psychiatry and queer and gender-variant people in the mid- to late-twentieth-century United States. It examines psychiatrists’ investments in understanding homosexuality as a dire psychiatric condition, a judgment that garnered them tremendous power and authority at a time that historians have characterized as psychiatry’s “golden age.” That stigmatizing diagnosis made a deep and lasting impact, too, on queer people, shaping gay life and politics in indelible ways. In the Shadow of Diagnosis helps us understand the adhesive and ongoing connection between queerness and sickness.
 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Gender, LGBT, Psychology, Sexuality, Disability Studies

239 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2024

Reviews

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

really crazy that i kept crying through this book like really crazy like

[Melody Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book is detailed and has wonderful insights. I just struggled with it due to the big blocks of text and how it runs together without smooth transitions .
Still as a resource it is good for information. Just hard to glean from writing style. I considered trying to see if it was available in audio format, which it wasn't, just for ease to read.
would love to see an audio book version or an updated format which is easier to read.