Why do maladies of the soul such as hysteria anxiety disorders or depression wax and wane over time? Through a study of the history of psychiatry Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen provocatively argues that most mental illnesses are not in fact diseases but the product of varying expectations shared and negotiated by therapists and patients. With a series of fascinating historical vignettes stretching from Freud''s creation of false memories of sexual abuse in his early hysterical patients to today''s promot