Eric Caplan
AUTHOR

Eric Caplan

Tap the gear icon above to manage new release emails.
Eric Caplan is a historian of American psychiatry whose work explores the institutions, ideologies, and power dynamics that shape mental health care. His forthcoming book, When Healing Harms (University of California Press, October 2026), reconstructs the landmark malpractice case of Osheroff v. Chestnut Lodge from primary sources never before examined—revealing how a single lawsuit accelerated the transformation of psychiatric practice in the United States. His first book, Mind Games: American Culture and the Birth of Psychotherapy (UC Press, 1998), challenged the myth of Freud’s foundational role in American psychotherapy, showing that mind-cure practitioners and their physician rivals had already established the practice before Freud arrived on American shores in 1909. An award-winning teacher and former William Rainey Harper Fellow, Caplan has taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, and Wesleyan University. His dual perspective—rigorous scholarship fused with lived experience as someone who has battled depression for decades—gives his work an emotional authenticity that pure academic accounts lack. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.
Read more Read less

The Best Fiction Podcasts for Listeners Who Love a Good Story

You can’t beat a good story. Luckily, humans are great at storytelling, and the best fiction podcasts are all the proof that the modern listener requires. Get the popcorn ready; it’s storytime.

Featured Article: The Best Fiction Podcasts for Listeners Who Love a Good Story

Best Sellers

Product list
  • When Healing Harms cover art

    • When Healing Harms

    • The Doctor Who Put a Hospital on Trial—and the Case That Shook Psychiatry
    • Written by: Eric Caplan
    • Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
    • Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
    • Release date: 2026-10-06
    • Language: English
    • Not rated yet

    $25.00 or free with 30-day trial

    Pre-order: Try for $0.00