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The last asylum : a memoir of madness in our times

In July 1988, Canadian-born historian Barbara Taylor was admitted to Friern Hospital, a once-notorious asylum for the insane. Her journey there began when, overwhelmed by anxiety as she completed her doctoral studies in London, England, she found relief by dosing herself with alcohol and tranquillizers. She then embarked on what would turn out to be a decades- long psychoanalysis.The analysis dredged up acutely painful memories of an unhappy and confusing childhood back in Saskatoon. As Taylor struggled to cope with these, she would twice be re-admitted to Friern. She took refuge in day-care institutions and a psychiatric hostel, all the while continuing her therapy, which eventually put her on the road to recovery.This searingly honest, beautifully written memoir is the narrative of the author's madness years, set inside the wider story of our treatment of psychiatric illness: from the great age of asylums to the current era of community care, Big Pharma', and quick fixes. It is a meditation on her own experience as well as that of millions of others - both in Europe and in North America - who have suffered, are suffering, and will suffer from mental illness.

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  • "The Last Asylum is Barbara Taylor's haunting memoir of her journey through the UK mental health system. A Radio 4 Book of The Week."
  • "Begins with Barbara Taylor's visit to the innocuously named Princess Park Manor in Friern Barnet, North London - a picture of luxury and repose. But this is the former site of one of England's most infamous lunatic asylums, the Middlesex County Pauper Lunatic Aslyum at Colney Hatch."
  • "In July 1988, Canadian-born historian Barbara Taylor was admitted to Friern Hospital, a once-notorious asylum for the insane. Her journey there began when, overwhelmed by anxiety as she completed her doctoral studies in London, England, she found relief by dosing herself with alcohol and tranquillizers. She then embarked on what would turn out to be a decades- long psychoanalysis.The analysis dredged up acutely painful memories of an unhappy and confusing childhood back in Saskatoon. As Taylor struggled to cope with these, she would twice be re-admitted to Friern. She took refuge in day-care institutions and a psychiatric hostel, all the while continuing her therapy, which eventually put her on the road to recovery.This searingly honest, beautifully written memoir is the narrative of the author's madness years, set inside the wider story of our treatment of psychiatric illness: from the great age of asylums to the current era of community care, Big Pharma', and quick fixes. It is a meditation on her own experience as well as that of millions of others - both in Europe and in North America - who have suffered, are suffering, and will suffer from mental illness."@en
  • "The Last Asylum is Barbara Taylor's haunting memoir of her journey through the UK mental health system. A Radio 4 Book of The Week. In July 1988, Barbara Taylor, then an acclaimed young historian, was admitted to what had once been England's largest psychiatric institution: Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, later known as Friern Hospital. This searingly honest, thought-provoking and beautifully written memoir is the story of the author's madness years, set inside the wider story of the death of the asylum system in the twentieth century. It is a meditation on her own experience of breakdown and healing, but also that of the millions of other people who have suffered, are suffering, will suffer mental illness. Personal story, psychoanalytic process, the experience of madness, the feel of being an inpatient in the last days of Friern, the history of the asylum ...A beautiful memoir, engrossing. (Independent). Moving, brave and intelligent. (Susan Hill, The Times). Dazzling. A great achievement, full of life and hope. (Sunday Telegraph). Barbara Taylor's previous books include an award-winning study of nineteenth-century socialist feminism, Eve and the New Jerusalem; an intellectual biography of the pioneer feminist Mary Wollstonecraft; and On Kindness, a defence of fellow feeling co-written with the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips. She is a longstanding editor of the leading history journal, History Workshop Journal, and a director of the Raphael Samuel History Centre. She teaches History and English at Queen Mary University of London."
  • "Barbara Taylor's The Last Asylum is a haunting memoir about illness and the psychiatric health system. A well-regarded historian of nineteenth-century British history and literature, Taylor hasn't merely written an account of the British asylum system--she's been a patient in it. Her battles with mental illness were sufficiently severe to lead to her institutionalization in the early 1980s, not long before the longstanding system began to change dramatically. Socially conscious and self-aware, Taylor writes incisively about her own position and privileges in various systems. She speaks clearly, bravely, and explicitly not only about her own experience but about the contemporary treatment of the mentally ill and the need for society to provide, in some sense, asylum for those who need it."
  • "Canadian-born historian Barbara Taylor's memoir is the narrative of the author's madness years, set inside the wider story of our treatment of psychiatric illness: from the great age of asylums to the current era of community care, Big Pharma, and quick fixes."@en

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  • "Pathographies"
  • "Biography"@en
  • "Electronic books"@en
  • "Memoirs"
  • "Herinneringen (vorm)"

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  • "The Last Asylum : A Memoir of Madness in Our Times"
  • "The last asylum : a memoir of madness in our times"
  • "The last asylum : a memoir of madness in our times"@en
  • "Last Asylum, The : A Memoir of Madness in Our Times"

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