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Psychologist Peter Barham, with Ph.Ds in history from Cambridge and in psychology from Durham, is the author of such remarkable and ever pertinent books as Schizophrenia and Human Value , Closing the Asylums , Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War and, with Robert Hayward, of From the Mental patient to The Person , republished as Relocating Madness. He is also producer, with Geoff Griffiths, of the 3 part documentary Living With Schizophrenia. We nabbed him for a reflective conversation on past and present moments in his career,
Young: What I would like to do is facilitate making the readers of our journal to taste to the point of craving what you have written and what you have done as a philanthropist. I also have some personal curiosities, for example why you have been so itinerant about the academic homes where you have conducted your research. Why didn't you get a lectureship, stay put and serve your time till the retirement age?
Barham: That's a chapter of accidents. It wasn't planned. Somebody said to me that I have made a career of not having a career. One part of my life has been a springboard to something else. I haven't planned those next steps. When I got passionately interested in the history of madness Roy Porter was an obviously a magnet. He was publisher's reader for my first book, but I didn't meet him until 1990. It was through him I got intensively involved in the history of mental patients and institutions. I worked with him at the Academic Unit of the Wellcome Unit at University College in London. He was a particular inspiration. To some extent I found my own way, for example, to the forgotten lunatics of the Great War.
Young: Were there other people who were particularly influential?
Barham: There was a person called Irving Velody at Durham. He and Arthur Still (who was my PhD supervisor) were founding editors of the History of the Human Sciences. And Roger Smith. The people around the journal were a focus for me, particularly in my research on forgo