Dr Chris Millard (he/him)
BA, MA (York) PhD (Queen Mary, University of London)
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
Senior Lecturer in the History of Medicine and Medical Humanities
Senior Tutor
+44 114 222 2558
Full contact details
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
405
9 Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 4DT
- Profile
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I joined the University of Sheffield in 2016, having studied and taught in York, Birmingham and London.
My research has focused on the history of psychiatry and medicine in the twentieth century, particularly around self-harm, suicide, faking illness and child abuse. I have published on the history of self-harm in Britain, and most recently on historians' personal experiences in relation to the histories that they write.
I am also interested more broadly in the welfare state, the ‘helping professions’ of social work and child guidance, and the increasing influence of anthropology and sociology on medicine and psychiatry during the twentieth century. My next project will investigate the idea of 'vicarious trauma', and its relation to ideas of 'burnout', especially as this has come to affect historians dealing with 'difficult' or potentially 'traumatic' source material.
I also worked in the UK Parliament in 2014, researching and writing a briefing on ‘parity of esteem between mental and physical health’.
- Qualifications
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BA, MA (York) PhD (Queen Mary, University of London)
- Research interests
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I have just finished a history of illness deception in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book charts the chronic faking of illness (Munchausen syndrome) and deliberately making one’s children ill (Munchausen syndrome by proxy). The book also investigates how historians' personal experiences might influence or drive their research. It is called _The Politics of Personal Experience: Writing a History of Munchausen Syndromes_ (2026). The book both contextualises personal experience in histories, and writes a history that reflects upon my personal experience with these categories.
I still write about self-harm and attempted suicide, the subject of my PhD thesis and later my book: A History of Self-Harm in Britain: A Genealogy of Cutting and Overdosing (2015). My next project is a history of the idea of ‘vicarious trauma’ - especially as this relates to historians who research 'challenging' or 'sensitive' topics.
I have supervised PhD projects on the history disease categories: one, on Encephalitis Lethargica (sleeping sickness) which showed how British healthcare was and remains built around the oppositons between "mental or physical" medicine and "chronic or acute" conditions. Another, on the history of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) showed how this diagnosis was central to a particular kind of 'evidence-based medicine' that has come to dominate modern psychology. I am currently supervising one PhD on the history of student mental health and exam stress, and another on the publication of accounts of "lived experience of mental illness".
More generally, I am interested in the ways in which modern medicine and psychiatry influence and inform our everyday lives, from assumptions about who we are, the advice we are given, and the services provided for us.
This involves research in the history of the emotions, the history of anthropology and sociology, and the history of psychiatry, psychology, social work and medicine.
- Publications
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Books
- The Politics of Personal Experience. New York: Routledge.
- A History of Self-Harm in Britain. Palgrave Macmillan Wellcome Trust.
- A History of Self-Harm in Britain: A Genealogy of Cutting and Overdosing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Edited books
Journal articles
- A history of self-harm in the UK and the USA. The Lancet, 404(10461), 1395-1397.
- History shows that doctors’ professional identity shapes healthcare discourse—and we must not ignore it. British Medical Journal (The BMJ), 2024(385). View this article in WRRO
- Hilfiker in perspective. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 99(2), 203-205. View this article in WRRO
- Attempted Suicide: Its Social Significance and Effects by Erwin Stengel and Nancy Cook, with Irving Kreeger. BJPsych Advances, 30(2), 134-136.
- The paradox of necessary uncertainty: psychopathy, welfare and Munchausen syndrome in 1950s England. Science in Context, 36(1), 76-97. View this article in WRRO
- Error, injustice, and physician wellbeing. The Lancet, 397(10277), 872-873.
- The utilization of cultural movements to overcome stigma in narrative of postnatal depression. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11.
- Thinking in, with, across, and beyond cases with John Forrester. History of the Human Sciences, 33(3-4), 3-14.
- Using personal experience in the academic medical humanities: a genealogy. Social Theory and Health, 18, 184-198. View this article in WRRO
- Physician narratives of illness. The Lancet, 394(10192), 20-21. View this article in WRRO
- Narrative matters: self-harm in Britain post-1945: the evolution of new diagnostic category. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 22(3), 175-176. View this article in WRRO
- Concepts, diagnosis and the history of medicine: historicising Ian Hacking and Munchausen syndrome. Social History of Medicine. View this article in WRRO
- The History of Mental Health Services in Modern England: Practitioner Memories and the Direction of Future Research. Medical History, 59(4), 599-624. View this article in WRRO
- Parity of esteem between mental and physical health. BMJ, 349(nov14 10), g6821-g6821.
- Making the cut: The production of 'self-harm' in post-1945 Anglo-Saxon psychiatry.. History of the Human Sciences, 26(2), 126-150. View this article in WRRO
- Reinventing intention. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 25(6), 503-507.
Book chapters
- How close is too close? The practice and politics of lived experience in contemporary art, academic history and the medical humanities (pp. 51-58). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Justifying experience, changing expertise: From protest to authenticity in Anglophone “mad voices” in the mid-twentieth century In Beaumont C, Colpus E & Davidson R (Ed.), Everyday Welfare in Modern British History: Experience, Expertise and Activism (pp. 199-220). Springer Nature Switzerland View this article in WRRO
- Introduction In Millard C & Wallis J (Ed.), Sources in the History of Psychiatry, from 1800 to the Present (pp. 1-12). Abingdon: Routledge. View this article in WRRO
- Medical journals In Millard C & Wallis J (Ed.), Sources in the History of Psychiatry, from 1800 to the Present Abingdon: Routledge. View this article in WRRO
- Conclusion : Balance, malleability and anthropology : historical contexts In Jackson M & Moore MD (Ed.), Balancing the self : Medicine, politics and the regulation of health in the twentieth century (pp. 314-339). Manchester University Press
- Conclusion: Balance, malleability and anthropology: historical contexts In Jackson M & Moore M (Ed.), Balancing the Self: Medicine, Politics and the Regulation of Health in the Twentieth Century Manchester University Press View this article in WRRO
- Creating 'the social': stress, domesticity and attempted suicide In Jackson M (Ed.), Stress in Post-War Britain (pp. 177-192). Routledge View this article in WRRO
Book reviews
- Anne Harrington, Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness. Journal of Contemporary History, 56(2), 440-441.
- Sarah Chaney, Psyche on the Skin: A History of Self-Harm (London: Reaktion Books, 2017), pp. 315, 55 illus, £20.00, hardback, ISBN: 978-1-78023-750-3.. Medical History, 4(61), 602-604. View this article in WRRO
- Book Review: Elizabeth Lunbeck, The Americanization of Narcissism. History of Psychiatry, 26(4), 496-497.
- Book Review: Suicide: Foucault, History and Truth. History of the Human Sciences, 25(1), 135-139.
Theses
- Re -inventing the "cry for help": attempted suicide in Britain in the mid-twentieth century c 1937-1969. View this article in WRRO
Other
- Authors' reply to Timimi. BMJ, 349(dec16 18), g7619-g7619.
- The Politics of Personal Experience. New York: Routledge.
- Research group
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Research supervision
I am happy to supervise anyone interested in medicine, psychiatry, psychology, patient activism, social work, child guidance, the emotions, gender roles, the welfare state, the National Health Service and child abuse in twentieth- century Britain.
- Current Students
Anna Edwards, Amy Hall
- Completed Students
- Diana John (second supervisor)- Oral Histories with women who were married to gay men.
- Kate McAllister - Encephalitis Lethargica, viral illness, and the binary structures of the modern British health system c.1900-1975
- Teaching interests
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The history of psychiatry, the history of the emotions.
- Teaching activities
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- "From Shell-Shock to Prozac" - history of mental health and illness in twentieth-century Britain
- "From stiff upper lips to 'snowflakes'" - history of emotions in twentieth-century Britain.
- Professional activities and memberships
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Co-Editor _History of the Human Sciences_
- Public engagement
I co-devised and led the public engagement project ‘The Carnival of Lost Emotions’ at Queen Mary, University of London between 2012 and 2016 – engaging the public about the history of feeling. The Carnival has been shortlisted for an award, and showcased by the National Co-Ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) as an example of best practice in public engagement. It has been performed in diverse environments: the Barbican Centre, the Natural History Museum, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and as part of Secret Cinema.
The Carnival of Lost Emotions I recently devised and ran a public engagement event on psychological testing – talking people through 1940s, 1950s and 1960s psychological questionnaires. This was part of the Wellcome Trust’s ‘Feeling Spectacular’ programme.
In the media:
I have blogged for the Wellcome Library, the Centre for the History of the Emotions and The Conversation.
