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The Psychotic: Understanding Madness
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
August 23, 2026
One the one hand, this is a strong contender for one of the worst psychology books I've ever read.
On the other hand - it's also an excellent time capsule of what was commonly thought in the 1960's from the institutional side.
Superficially, from a writing style aspect, the translation I had was atrocious. I bought a used German translation, many parts seem to have been translated literally, with little consideration to how the meaning carries over in German. This is no fault of Crowcroft's, except wherein that he created the original. Overall the writing style fits squarely as "average" for psychoanalysis inclined authors.
The overall structure of the book tries to follow a progression "from childhood to old age". The content doesn't quite fit within the structure, discussions of history, symptoms, and procedures are spread out with no meaningful service towards coherence as a whole.
There's a lot of psychiatric historical revisionism happening in this book. Crowcroft acknowledges and pays lip service to the notion that the frontal leucotomy (lobotomy) is a barbaric practice. He admits that insulin shock therapy is bunk science, even then. But as is typical for his ilk, there is no call to action for the perpetrators of these practices to be prosecuted. He also sings great praises for Electro Convulsive 'Therapy', while not mentioning the history of applying electroshock as torture. Even today, this form of therapy while being 'embedded' in clinical practice does not feature robust data to demonstrate its reliability or validity.
A page by page review of the book would result in maybe finding three or four pages of useful insight. The rest is a puddle of surface level observations, as wide as an ocean. Crowcroft deigns to tell us not what he *thinks* a person is thinking or feeling, what their processes and mechanisms are, but rather to assert that his observation is objective.
Overall, I recommend reading this if you'd like to see what kind of person had real power over vulnerable people, and what kind of hogwash passed for science and medicine in the 1960's.
On the other hand - it's also an excellent time capsule of what was commonly thought in the 1960's from the institutional side.
Superficially, from a writing style aspect, the translation I had was atrocious. I bought a used German translation, many parts seem to have been translated literally, with little consideration to how the meaning carries over in German. This is no fault of Crowcroft's, except wherein that he created the original. Overall the writing style fits squarely as "average" for psychoanalysis inclined authors.
The overall structure of the book tries to follow a progression "from childhood to old age". The content doesn't quite fit within the structure, discussions of history, symptoms, and procedures are spread out with no meaningful service towards coherence as a whole.
There's a lot of psychiatric historical revisionism happening in this book. Crowcroft acknowledges and pays lip service to the notion that the frontal leucotomy (lobotomy) is a barbaric practice. He admits that insulin shock therapy is bunk science, even then. But as is typical for his ilk, there is no call to action for the perpetrators of these practices to be prosecuted. He also sings great praises for Electro Convulsive 'Therapy', while not mentioning the history of applying electroshock as torture. Even today, this form of therapy while being 'embedded' in clinical practice does not feature robust data to demonstrate its reliability or validity.
A page by page review of the book would result in maybe finding three or four pages of useful insight. The rest is a puddle of surface level observations, as wide as an ocean. Crowcroft deigns to tell us not what he *thinks* a person is thinking or feeling, what their processes and mechanisms are, but rather to assert that his observation is objective.
Overall, I recommend reading this if you'd like to see what kind of person had real power over vulnerable people, and what kind of hogwash passed for science and medicine in the 1960's.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review