Madness

Storyline

This is a five-part series delving into the history of madness throughout the ages, various levels of historical explanation and - most importantly - how we deal with madnes in the current day and age. The episodes are close to an hour long each. In the show, Miller dives deep within his subject matter, even interspersing explanations with extracts from a Shakespeare production he is then directing. He conducts interviews with researchers, psychiatrists and probably most enlighteningly, patients. He draws on his knowledge as both a medical practitioner and theatre director to extract an in-depth coverage of his subject. Miller commences with a definition of madness, which, as we are shown, is not clear cut at all and can vary with time, place and societal status. He then explores how reactions many centuries ago tended to either hide the patients away from others to cover up the embarrassment, or worse, to try to get rid of them. Madness has been treated in a variety of ways over the centuries, but it is really only in the twentieth century that the illness/disease paradigm has been applied to the condition. Toward the middle of the 1900s treatment generally involved isolation from the general community and intensive care in what used to be called lunatic asylums (ie psychiatric hospitals). These treatments tend to deprive the patient of liberties, but do provide for their immediate needs. Many of the treatments used were experimental, and the rights of patients have often been run roughshod over by doctors desperate to find a cure. More recently the tendency has been to release the patients into the general community as much as possible, resulting in vast numbers of unused asylums. The problem with giving insane patients their frredom is when they have it they don't really know what to do with it (or use it to perform anti-social actions). It also means that if they do need help, it's not readily available to them, sometimes with tragic consequences. Worst still are the plights of patients who were institutionalised early in their lives but are now being encouraged to mix with the ordinary community. As Miller quite clearly points out, there is no definite answer to the problem, and even he has trouble coming to definite conclusions about the subject. The programme is a real fire-starter for further discussion: discussion that can now be informed by the superb background material presented in the series. Even though Miller has suggestions, he is at pains to poin t out he doesn't really have answers.