Table Of ContentTHE
UNQUIET
MIND
WILLIAM SARGANT
Reprinted tor private circulation 1984
'You willhear every day the maxims of a low
prudence. You willhearthatthe firstdutyisto
get land and money, place and name . . . Be
content with a little light, so be it your own.
Explore and explore. Be neither chided nor
flattered out of your position of perpetual
inquiry. Truth also has its own roof, and bed
and board ... Makeyourselfnecessaryto the
world and mankind will give you bread . . .
such asshall not takeaway yourpropertyinall
men's affections, in art, in nature and in
hope.'
Ralph Waldo Emerson, July 24th,1838
By thesame author in Pan Books
BATTLE FOR THE MIND
THE MIND POSSESSED
Together with Eliolt Slater
PHYSICAL METHODS OF TREATMENT
IN PSYCHIATRY
(5 Editions) 1944-1972
WILLIAM SARGANT
THE UNQUIET MIND
First Published 1967byWilliam Heinemann Ltd.
Second edition published 1971byPan Books Ltd.,
33Tothill Street, London, SW1
ISBN 0 330026356
©William Sargant 1967
Reprintedfor private distribution 1984
Printed inEngland byHeadley Brothers Ltd.,
109Kingsway, London WC2B 6PX and Ashford, Kent
CONTENTS
Foreword 7
Introduction 11
1 Hanwell and Sussex 21
2 Early Years 35
3 From Nottingham to the Maudsley 53
4 The Maudsley Hospital 58
5 The Advent of New Treatments 73
6 Boston: 1938-1939 81
7 Travels in America 94
8 Outbreak of War 101
9 PsychiatricTreatmentsin World War IT 106
10 Dunkirk and After 113
11 More about World War 11 127
12 Pavlov's Impact on Modern Psychiatry 140
13 The Post-War Dilemma 150
14 A Second Year in America 155
15 Religious Revivals 164
16 The National Health Service 171
17 False Trails 187
18 Hospital and Private Practice 196
19 A Second Bout of Tuberculosis 204
20 Psychiatrists and Lawyers 214
21 Modem Treatments 236
Postscript 255
Appendix 256
References 275
Index 279
'You will hear every day the maxims of a Iow
prudence. You will hear that the first duty is to
get land and money. place and name... Be con
tent with a little light, so be it your own. Explore
and explore. Beneither chided nor flattered out of
your position of perpetual inquiry. Truth also has
its own roof, and bed and board... Make yourself
necessary to the world and mankind will giveyou
bread ... such as shall not take away your prop
erty in all men's affections,in art, in nature and in
hope.'
Ralph Waldo Emerson, July 24th, 1838
Foreword
The main purpose of this autobiography is to describe the
fascinating progress that has taken place during the last
thirty years in the discovery of medical and surgical
approaches to the treatment of the mind of man. No suffer
ing can compare with the suffering mind or what has been
called 'the dark night of the soul'.
I try to take the reader behind the scenes and show
how changes have come about. enabling patients such as I
describe in Chapter I as having to be committed to the
old Hanwell Asylum in 1934 to be treated three decades
later as out-patients or in-patients in a London general
teaching hospital. or any general hospital with psychiatric
beds for that matter. the treatment often only taking a few
weeks instead of months or years. This is an exciting story
and I believed it would be brought more alive if it were
told in the autobiographical form.
I also felt it would interest the reader much more if I
wrote this book while my own often unquiet mind was still
working at full speed. rather than wait until later when the
fire had died down. and one had started to lose that
essential feelingfor the sufferingof one's fellow men which
has made the continuous quest described here so very
important in my own life. And I have certainly lived
through very exciting times in my speciality as this book
will show. though certain aspects of it must of necessity
await fuller description later.
Itiswellsometimes to wake up haunted by what stillhas
to be endured by neurotically and mentally sick patients
either in hospitals or in their own homes. And it is to be
hoped that this book will make many despairing persons
8 The Unquiet Mind
realize with certainty that much more is on the point of
beingdiscovered which will help the more difficultcases of
brain disturbance - if we only continue along the road
of practical rather than philosophical approaches to treat
ment.
To many laymen, psychiatry and psychological medi
cine have too often become the subject of fear, anger or
laughter. It need not have been so had the public been
aware of how deeply they themselves are involved in these
problems. One in every hundred in Great Britain or the
United States seems fated to develop schizophrenia; one in
eight is due for a breakdown, mild or serious; and one in
fourteen will have to spend a short or longer stay in one
type or other of the hospitals described in this book. Half
the hospital beds in both countries are still occupied by
psychiatriccases. Perhaps fear makes people laugh to keep
their courage up; if so this book will point to more profit
able outlets for such feelings. Some readers will I hope
agree with me that the type of clinical research discussed
here deserves more than the pittance now given to it in
Great Britain, especially when one considers the millions
and millions now devoted to research into illnesses that
are far less devastating and destructive of human happi
ness.
As in my earlier book, Battle for the Mind. I again have
to thank Robert Graves for his help in preparing the final
manuscript. It has been a great joy to collaborate with him
a second time, and to observe how such a basically con
tented, if also sometimes unquiet mind, still works on for
our inspiration. My thanks are also due to my secretary,
Miss English; and to my wife, who did not want to be
talked about too much in the book, but whose presence per
meates every page of it, sincewithouther I could no longer
be myself.
Finally let me emphasize that I am glad to be able to
present this as an autobiography ofa 'physician in psycho
logical medicine'. Long ago I changed from predominantly
mental hospital work to workingalso, however humbly and
