We collect historical testimonials about the “lived experience” of madness and hospitalisation and provide a selection of public domain publications for download. The files are classified according to ethical criteria:
‘Authorised self-narratives’ have either been written and published by their respective authors themselves or their authors have explicitly consented to publication.
‘Non-authorised self-narratives‘ are texts that have been printed in other publications (research articles, specialist books, newspapers, etc.) without the authors’ consent to publication being evident.
Our bibliography Wahnsinn und Hospitalisierung (Madness and Hospitalisation; 2025) lists over 1,100 personal accounts from the period between 1800 and 1999.
