Literature and madness: fiction for students and professionals.
Psychiatry studies the human mind within a medical paradigm, exploring experience, response and reaction, emotion and affect. Similarly, writers of fiction explore within a non-clinical dimension the phenomena of the human mind. The synergism between literature and psychiatry seems clear, yet literature--and in particular, fiction--remain the poor relation of the medical textbook. How can literature be of particular relevance in psychiatry? This paper examines these issues and suggests a selection of useful texts.
School of Nursing, London Road Community Hospital, University of Nottingham, London Road, Derby, DE1 2QY, UK. Paul.Crawford@nottingham.ac.uk
Paul
P
Crawford
Charley
C
Baker
D004324:Drama; D006809:Humanities; D006801:Humans; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D011570:Psychiatry; D013337:Students, Medical