RSA Thursday - Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of the Study of the Female Mind

18th Sep 2008; 13:00

Event Venue:RSA, 8 John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6EZ

With Lisa Appignanesi, writer, novelist and President of English PEN.

Chair: Matthew Taylor, chief executive, RSA.

With recent studies showing girls are nine times more likely to attempt suicide than young boys, and binge drinking amongst girls reaching historic proportions, an analysis of the female mind and mental illness is perhaps more relevant now than ever.  In Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 to the Present (Virago, 2008), novelist and writer Lisa Appignanesi examines how history has treated the female mind, and why women are more likely to be considered mentally unstable than men.

How much does access to a profession and an independent life limit the road to madness?  Why do women respond more successfully to talking treatments than men?  Is there something about the female existence that might make them more susceptible to mental illness than men? 

Drawing on case studies from Virginia Woolf to Marilyn Monroe, and on theorists from Freud to Lacan, Appignanesi refuses to believe that madness comes out of nowhere.  Join us for a challenging and compelling journey through the fragile, extraordinary human mind.

Download Lisa Appignanesi in conversation with Matthew Taylor and Q&A session (MP3)

(Please right-click link and choose "Save As..." to download file onto your computer.)