Welcome to ericcaplan.com

Welcome to my new website. I created this space to share news about my work, upcoming events, and reflections on the history of psychiatry and mental health care in America.

When Healing Harms

My forthcoming book, When Healing Harms: The Doctor Who Put a Hospital on Trial — and the Case That Shook Psychiatry, will be published by the University of California Press on October 7, 2026.

The book reconstructs the landmark malpractice case of Osheroff v. Chestnut Lodge from primary sources — including more than 120 hours of raw hearing footage and thousands of pages of sealed records — that no previous scholar has examined. It is a story about institutional arrogance, medical neglect, and personal betrayal that extends far beyond one man's suffering to illuminate how we arrived at our current mental health crisis.

Pre-order links will be available soon. In the meantime, I invite you to explore the site and learn more about the book and my earlier work, Mind Games: American Culture and the Birth of Psychotherapy (UC Press, 1998).

I look forward to connecting with you.