Emotionally Disturbed
A History of Caring for America’s Troubled Children
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents

Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
One O Pioneers!
Interlude: The Road to Residential
Two Disturbed Children, Disturbing Children
Three Playing by Ear
Interlude: Therapeutics in Residential Treatment
Four The Special Relationship
Five A New Home
Six Building the Normal Child
Interlude: Homeward Bound
Seven The Breakdown of Emotional Disturbance
Eight Discarded Children: The Last Thirty Years in Child Mental Health
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Key to Archives and Manuscripts
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
Key to Archives and Manuscripts
Notes
Index
Review Quotes
CHOICE
"Meticulously researched and well-written . . . . A welcome contribution to the history of medicine. Highly recommended."
Nursing Clio
"The book does a masterful job of explaining how this new category of mental illness came into being and how it related to the emerging field of child psychiatry, as well as to broader changes in psychiatric theory and practice itself."
The Lancet
"Doroshow holds up residential treatment centres not as a perfect model for treatment, but as a riveting example of how we might create change. Her narrative inspires us to examine the cultural ideals quietly shaping our understanding of ourselves and our children. We might not use the word 'normal' these days, but undoubtedly new ideals infuse our understanding of our children and ourselves. What are they? How do they affect even our most progressive approaches to treating children who struggle? Doroshow’s book ultimately represents a case for more history as thorough and sensitive as her own."
Barron H. Lerner, MD, PhD, author of The Good Doctor: A Father, A Son, and the Evolution of Medical Ethics
"Emotionally Disturbed is a clearly written and meticulously researched account of residential treatment centers, a largely forgotten strategy for addressing the needs of children with mental illness. This book will remind those who work with, live with, and love such children how a combination of ingenuity, resources, and focused care greatly improved the lives of those whom society had left behind."
Nancy Tomes, Stony Brook University
"Doroshow's work exemplifies a new generation of historians bent on reinterpreting the history of American psychiatry from a fresh, twenty-first-century perspective. Artfully researched and beautifully written, Emotionally Disturbed explores a little-known aspect of twentieth-century mental health care: the efforts to devise new therapeutic options for 'leftover' children, that is, children and youth so troubled that neither their families nor existing institutions would care for them. Doroshow's work deepens our understanding of the past and present challenges of caring for this very important, very vulnerable group of Americans."
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