Episode · Lex Fridman Podcast · 2026-09-17
Books mentioned on #502 – Psychiatry, Insane Asylums, Mental Illness, ECT, Lobotomies, Freud & Jung
Andrew Scull is a historian of psychiatry. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.
Lex Fridman recommended Madness in Civilization by Andrew Scull and Desperate Remedies by Andrew Scull, and discussed A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar and Flowers for Algernon by David Rogers and others. Andrew Scull discussed On Being Sane in Insane Places by David L. Rosenhan, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, Asylum by Patrick Mcgrath, Wear and Tear or, Hints for the Overworked by Silas Weir Mitchell, Fat and Blood by Silas Weir Mitchell, Studies in Hysteria by Sigmund Freud, and The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Madness in Civilization
Madness in Civilization is a comprehensive historical examination of how societies have perceived, categorized, and treated mental illness from biblical times through the era of Sigmund Freud and into the advent of modern psychiatric medicine.
Recommended“He has authored many books that I highly recommend including Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine”
Where to get it
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Desperate Remedies
Desperate Remedies by Andrew Scull is a comprehensive historical investigation into psychiatry's turbulent quest to cure mental illness and the often harrowing methods employed throughout history.
Recommended“and Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry's Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness.”
Where to get it
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On Being Sane in Insane Places
Discussed“then via a very famous study that's a scientific fraud by David Rosenhan called On Being Sane in Insane Places where he claimed to have sent in pseudo patients to the hospital”
Where to get it
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey's classic novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" portrays institutional life and psychiatric practices through the experiences of patients in a mental asylum.
Discussed“And of course in the popular mind I think the, probably the most famous, instance of telling the public about some of these interventions was the film of Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where you see Jack Nicholson giving I think the performance of a lifetime who is given ECT, electroconvulsive therapy,”
Where to get it
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A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar is a biographical work chronicling the life of mathematician John Nash and his struggle with schizophrenia.
Discussed“One of the people who received insulin coma therapy—have you seen the film A Beautiful Mind? Mm-hmm, he did. Receive insulin coma therapy.”
Where to get it
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Flowers for Algernon
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes is a poignant science fiction novel about Charlie Gordon, a man with an intellectual disability who undergoes an experimental surgical procedure to dramatically enhance his intelligence, mirroring the earlier cognitive boost of a laboratory mouse named Algernon.
Discussed“Now that reminds me of Flowers for Algernon. That doesn't have a happy ending, and it's not about mental health necessarily, but it's about the journey of institution in relation to the health of a patient.”
Where to get it
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Asylum
Discussed“And my friend Patrick McGrath, who's a novelist, wrote a book called Asylum. Patrick grew up in the grounds of Broadmoor. Broadmoor is England's premier hospital for the criminally insane, and he was babysat by some of the patients.”
Where to get it
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Wear and Tear or, Hints for the Overworked
Discussed“Weir Mitchell wrote two popular bestsellers, self-help books, suppose you'd call them in the modern genre. One was called Wear and Tear. The pace of modern life, the telegraph, the railway was all too much.”
Where to get it
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Fat and Blood
Discussed“The solution was Fat and Blood. That was the title of the other book. You got scrawny, nouveau, nervous, twitchy. And what you really needed was to build back up your strength. including your nervous strength.”
Where to get it
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Studies in Hysteria
Discussed“And Breuer collaborate on a book called Studies in Hysteria, and they're a series of case vignettes in there of patients Freud has treated.”
Where to get it
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The Interpretation of Dreams
The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud is a foundational psychoanalytic text that introduces the concept of dream analysis as a window into the unconscious mind and repressed desires.
Discussed“He writes The Interpretation of Dreams, for example, because he begins to regard dreams as an arena where these hidden memories, these suppressed- ... things reemerge in disguised form in your dream life.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (4) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“My book Madhouse at one point interested Hollywood, and one of the two principals said to me, "I really like this story. It's got a great first act and a great second act, but where's the third act?"”
“So when I first conceived the idea of writing Desperate Remedies, the book, it was back in 1981 and I was in London on a Guggenheim Fellowship at the Wellcome Institute.”
“Your own Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry's- - Yeah. Yeah - ... Turmoil in Quest to Cure Mental Illness.”
“and I wrote a big book called Madness in Civilization about from the ancient Greeks and ancient China to now -- in every society I've studied they have to cope with this.”