A world-renowned psychiatrist reveals the fascinating story of psychiatry's origins, demise and redemption.

Psychiatry has come a long way since the days of chaining 'lunatics' in cold cells and parading them as freakish marvels before a gaping public. But, as Jeffrey Lieberman reveals in his extraordinary and eye-opening book, the path to legitimacy for 'the black sheep of medicine' has been anything but smooth.

In SHRINKS, Dr Lieberman traces the field from its birth as a mystic pseudo-science through its adolescence as a cult of 'shrinks' to its late blooming maturity since the Second World War as a science-driven profession that saves lives. With fascinating case studies and portraits of the luminaries of the field, from Sigmund Freud to Eric Kandel, SHRINKS is a gripping and illuminating read. It is also an urgent call-to-arms to dispel the stigma surrounding mental illness and to start treating it as a disease rather than a state of mind.

"As a retort to those that still believe there are no mental disorders, only diverse mentalities, Jeffrey Lieberman's historic and spirited defence of psychiatric diagnoses and treatments has much work to do ... This is a humane guide to psychiatry's internal conflicts and a candid account of its claims to scientific credibility" - THE TIMES

"Journeying through the history of psychiatry with Jeffrey A. Lieberman is not unlike being led by Voltaire's indomitable optimist, Professor Pangloss, through the seven years' war and the Lisbon earthquake ... [Lieberman is] a breezy, charming, and genial guide to a field fraught with difficulties ... [He is] an insider, with the kind of experience most professional historians cannot claim" - THE OBSERVER

"An informative book ... Given that the mind is a fragile faculty and the brain is a delicate organ, it is sobering to discover from his book what a haphazard discipline psychiatry was until the 1970s" - CATHOLIC HERALD