Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry

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Author :
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry by : Colin A. Ross

Download or read book Pseudoscience in Biological Psychiatry written by Colin A. Ross and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1995 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lately, it seems that not a day passes without the media proclaiming yet another sensational breakthrough in the search for the physical origins of mental illness. But beyond all the fanfare and media hype, is there a single shred of hard, empirical evidence to substantiate the existence of "a gene for alcoholism," or "the brain chemistry behind schizophrenia"? More to the point, in fact, is it scientifically sound to limit the search for the roots of mental illness to processes occurring within the body, while dismissing socioeconomic, familial, and experiential influences as, at best, mere "triggering mechanisms"? And, if not, what harm is being done by psychiatry's current obsession with these somatic chimeras? This groundbreaking book offers answers to those questions and more. While Dr. Ross and Professor Pam clearly assert from the outset that biological psychiatry "is dominated by a reductionist ideology which distorts and misrepresents much of its research," this is by no means a raw polemic voiced by an overzealous opposition. Instead, it is a reasoned discourse based on a clear-sighted and methodical examination of the professional literature. Contributors to this volume include distinguished researchers and clinicians from the fields of psychiatry, psychology, sociology, and psychopharmacology. Their common purpose in coming together was to alert the mental health community to the ideological blind spots and conceptual errors in the basic logic and methodology of biological psychiatry, to demonstrate the need for a more scientifically based psychiatric practice, and to suggest alternative approaches to understanding and treating mental illness. Readers will find their arguments stimulating, provocative, and highly persuasive. Among the cutting-edge issues they explore are: the historical origins of biological psychiatry; genetics and mental illness; the current state of psychiatric training; psychopharmacology and drug therapy; the public health, legal, and ethical implications of biological psychiatry; and the funding, power, and politics of research. This book is essential reading for all mental health professionals. It also has many important things to say to health care administrators, political analysts, and public policy-makers. Of related interest . . . INSANITY The Idea and Its Consequences Thomas Szasz In this provocative book, Dr. Thomas Szasz, one of the most celebrated and controversial psychiatric thinkers of our time, presents a carefully crafted, systematic analysis of the precise character and practical consequences of the idea of mental illness. His findings and opinions have captured the attention of organized psychiatry and given everyone concerned with the human condition a better understanding of this almost universally misunderstood "disease." 1990 (0-471-52534-0) 432 pp. CRUEL COMPASSION Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted Thomas Szasz Cruel Compassion is the capstone of Thomas Szasz's critique of psychiatric practices. Reexamining psychiatric interventions from a cultural-historical and political-economic perspective, Szasz demonstrates that the main problem that faces mental health policymakers today is adult dependency. He gives us a sobering look at some of our most cherished notions about our humane treatment of society's unwanted and about ourselves as a compassionate and democratic people. 1994 (0-471-01012-X) 260 pp.

Anxiety - The Inside Story

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Publisher : Future Psychiatry Press
ISBN 13 : 1615994106
Total Pages : 339 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (159 download)

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Book Synopsis Anxiety - The Inside Story by : Niall McLaren

Download or read book Anxiety - The Inside Story written by Niall McLaren and published by Future Psychiatry Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Anxiety--The Inside Story, the author takes a critical look at modern psychiatry's twin notions that all mental disorders are biological in nature, but anxiety is hardly worth worrying about. By the simple process of taking a careful, detailed history, Niall McLaren shows that anxiety is far more common and far more destructive than mainstream psychiatry realizes. Detailed case histories chart how anxiety arises as a psychological disorder and how it reinforces itself to the point where it destroys lives. McLaren concludes that anxiety is a major factor in most mental disorders, especially depression and bipolar disorder. This book will change your understanding of mental disorders. Niall (Jock) McLaren writes as he speaks and he pulls no punches. I love this. People should listen to what he has to say about the academic corruption of his specialty, psychiatry. Read this book. The man is unique. And funny, as well. -- Prof. Peter Gotzsche, Director, Nordic Cochrane Centre, Copenhagen Debilitating anxieties are frequently misdiagnosed as "depression" by GPs and specialists alike. In this wonderfully accessible account of anxiety, Dr. McLaren demonstrates with great clarity--and very movingly--how a case history approach can help patients confront and overcome their psychological demons. He provides compelling evidence that instead of drugging people, listening to them attentively and analytically has to be the beginning of the healing process. -- Dr. Allan Patience, University of Melbourne Anxiety--The Inside Story offers readers a devastating, blistering critique of psychiatry, together with a provocative exploration of how anxiety, so often dismissed as a "minor" difficulty, should be understood as the root cause of so much suffering—which manifests in a diverse range of behaviors that get wrongly categorized as distinct psychiatric "illnesses." Niall McLaren presents a compelling case that psychiatric care in Australia and beyond needs to be completely rethought. -- Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America and Psychiatry Under the Influence From Future Psychiatry Press Learn more at www.FuturePsychiatry.com

Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness

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Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 1324001976
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness by : Anne Harrington

Download or read book Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness written by Anne Harrington and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mind Fixers tells the history of psychiatry’s quest to understand the biological basis of mental illness and asks where we need to go from here. In Mind Fixers, Anne Harrington, author of The Cure Within, explores psychiatry’s repeatedly frustrated struggle to understand mental disorder in biomedical terms. She shows how the stalling of early twentieth century efforts in this direction allowed Freudians and social scientists to insist, with some justification, that they had better ways of analyzing and fixing minds. But when the Freudians overreached, they drove psychiatry into a state of crisis that a new “biological revolution” was meant to alleviate. Harrington shows how little that biological revolution had to do with breakthroughs in science, and why the field has fallen into a state of crisis in our own time. Mind Fixers makes clear that psychiatry’s waxing and waning biological enthusiasms have been shaped not just by developments in the clinic and lab, but also by a surprising range of social factors, including immigration, warfare, grassroots activism, and assumptions about race and gender. Government programs designed to empty the state mental hospitals, acrid rivalries between different factions in the field, industry profit mongering, consumerism, and an uncritical media have all contributed to the story as well. In focusing particularly on the search for the biological roots of schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder, Harrington underscores the high human stakes for the millions of people who have sought medical answers for their mental suffering. This is not just a story about doctors and scientists, but about countless ordinary people and their loved ones. A clear-eyed, evenhanded, and yet passionate tour de force, Mind Fixers recounts the past and present struggle to make mental illness a biological problem in order to lay the groundwork for creating a better future, both for those who suffer and for those whose job it is to care for them.

The Missing Gene

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Publisher : Algora Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0875864104
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (758 download)

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Book Synopsis The Missing Gene by : Jay Joseph

Download or read book The Missing Gene written by Jay Joseph and published by Algora Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Researchers still haven't found the genes that underlie schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and autism; perhaps they do not exist. A genetic researcher in psychiatry and psychology urges we return our focus to family, social, and political environments as the sources of psychological distress.

Anatomy of an Epidemic

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Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307452433
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Anatomy of an Epidemic by : Robert Whitaker

Download or read book Anatomy of an Epidemic written by Robert Whitaker and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-04-13 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updated with bonus material, including a new foreword and afterword with new research, this New York Times bestseller is essential reading for a time when mental health is constantly in the news. In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades? Interwoven with Whitaker’s groundbreaking analysis of the merits of psychiatric medications are the personal stories of children and adults swept up in this epidemic. As Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, other societies have begun to alter their use of psychiatric medications and are now reporting much improved outcomes . . . so why can’t such change happen here in the United States? Why have the results from these long-term studies—all of which point to the same startling conclusion—been kept from the public? Our nation has been hit by an epidemic of disabling mental illness, and yet, as Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, the medical blueprints for curbing that epidemic have already been drawn up. Praise for Anatomy of an Epidemic “The timing of Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic, a comprehensive and highly readable history of psychiatry in the United States, couldn’t be better.”—Salon “Anatomy of an Epidemic offers some answers, charting controversial ground with mystery-novel pacing.”—TIME “Lucid, pointed and important, Anatomy of an Epidemic should be required reading for anyone considering extended use of psychiatric medicine. Whitaker is at the height of his powers.” —Greg Critser, author of Generation Rx

Psychiatry

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Publisher : Syracuse University Press
ISBN 13 : 0815650442
Total Pages : 170 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (156 download)

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Book Synopsis Psychiatry by : Thomas Szasz

Download or read book Psychiatry written by Thomas Szasz and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-28 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than half a century, Thomas Szasz has devoted much of his career to a radical critique of psychiatry. His latest work, Psychiatry: The Science of Lies, is a culmination of his life’s work: to portray the integral role of deception in the history and practice of psychiatry. Szasz argues that the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness stands in the same relationship to the diagnosis and treatment of bodily illness that the forgery of a painting does to the original masterpiece. Art historians and the legal system seek to distinguish forgeries from originals. Those concerned with medicine, on the other hand—physicians, patients, politicians, health insurance providers, and legal professionals—take the opposite stance when faced with the challenge of distinguishing everyday problems in living from bodily diseases, systematically authenticating nondiseases as diseases. The boundary between disease and nondisease—genuine and imitation, truth and falsehood—thus becomes arbitrary and uncertain. There is neither glory nor profit in correctly demarcating what counts as medical illness and medical healing from what does not. Individuals and families wishing to protect themselves from medically and politically authenticated charlatanry are left to their own intellectual and moral resources to make critical decisions about human dilemmas miscategorized as "mental diseases" and about medicalized responses misidentified as "psychiatric treatments." Delivering his sophisticated analysis in lucid prose and with a sharp wit, Szasz continues to engage and challenge readers of all backgrounds.

Beyond the Disease Model of Mental Disorders

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313373736
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (133 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond the Disease Model of Mental Disorders by : Donald Kiesler

Download or read book Beyond the Disease Model of Mental Disorders written by Donald Kiesler and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1999-03-30 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kiesler's Beyond the Disease Model of Mental Disorder goes beyond recent volumes which argue that psychotropic medications are being overused and abused in contemporary mental health settings. Elliott Valenstein, for example, an emeritus professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan, recently argues that people should be highly suspicious of the claim that all mental illness is primarily a biochemical disorder. In his 1998 book, Blaming the Brain: The Truth about Drugs and Mental Health, Valenstein does not argue that drugs never work or that patients should discontinue taking medication. Valenstein's central point, instead, is that drugs do not attack the real cause of a disorder, since biochemical theories are an unproven hypothesis and probably a false one. Inasmuch as Kiesler's volume is concerned exclusively with scientific explanations of mental disorders, it does not review at all the evidence for psychotropic medications or for other treatments of mental disorders. Kiesler does highlight a message similar to that of Valenstein, who rejects the hypothesis that mental illness is primarily a biochemical disorder. After a comprehensive review of the relevant scientific evidence, Kiesler concludes that henceforth the study of mental disorders must be guided by multicausal theories and research that systematically include an array of biological, psychological, and sociocultural causal factors. Kiesler adds that, in order for this to be accomplished, the mental health field and the public at large must first abandon the invalid monocausal biomedical (disease) model of mental disorder.

Propaganda in the Helping Professions

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199717176
Total Pages : 581 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis Propaganda in the Helping Professions by : Eileen Gambrill

Download or read book Propaganda in the Helping Professions written by Eileen Gambrill and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-20 with total page 581 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Propaganda in the helping professions has grown by leaps and bounds in recent decades, with alarming implications for clients and their families, as well as the professionals who try to help them. There is a fog that has been generated by corporate interests and organizations attempting to sell their services and products to desperate or poorly educated consumers. Propaganda in the Helping Professions is a guide to lifting the confusion. From phrenology to institutional crib-beds for adult psychiatric patients, from Roman bird-beak masks to drugs designed to combat overurination, readers are taken on a tour across the centuries of egregious practices of professionals and quacks including the present-day medicalization of our lives. The author, one of the field's most relentless critics of fads, phonies, and fallacies, shows readers how to think critically about both research and advertising in order to deliver effective services to clients and not be bamboozled by bogus claims about alleged problems, risks, and remedies. Incisive, interesting, eminently readable, and passionately argued, this book places responsibility for client well-being both on consumers--to raise questions--and on the professionals who claim to help them--to accurately answer them.

Liberation by Oppression

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351508776
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (515 download)

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Book Synopsis Liberation by Oppression by : Thomas Szasz

Download or read book Liberation by Oppression written by Thomas Szasz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally called mad-doctoring, psychiatry began in the seventeenth century with the establishing of madhouses and the legal empowering of doctors to incarcerate persons denominated as insane. Until the end of the nineteenth century, every relationship between psychiatrist and patient was based on domination and coercion, as between master and slave. Psychiatry, its emblem the state mental hospital, was a part of the public sphere, the sphere of coercion.The advent of private psychotherapy, at the end of the nineteenth century, split psychiatry in two: some patients continued to be the involuntary inmates of state hospitals; others became the voluntary patients of privately practicing psychotherapists. Psychotherapy was officially defined as a type of medical treatment, but actually was a secular-medical version of the cure of souls. Relationships between therapist and patient, Thomas Szasz argues, was based on cooperation and contract, as is relationships between employer and employee, or, between clergyman and parishioner. Psychotherapy, its emblem the therapist's office, was a part of the private sphere, the contract.Through most of the twentieth century, psychiatry was a house divided-half-slave, and half-free. During the past few decades, psychiatry became united again: all relations between psychiatrists and patients, regardless of the nature of the interaction between them, are now based on actual or potential coercion. This situation is the result of two major ""reforms"" that deprive therapist and patient alike of the freedom to contract with one another: Therapists now have a double duty: they must protect all mental patients-involuntary and voluntary, hospitalized or outpatient, incompetent or competent-from themselves. They must also protect the public from all patients.Persons designated as mental patients may be exempted from responsibility for the deleterious consequences of their own behavior if it is attributed to mental illne

The Age of Melancholy

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Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 0415951887
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (159 download)

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Book Synopsis The Age of Melancholy by : Dan German Blazer

Download or read book The Age of Melancholy written by Dan German Blazer and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2005 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Your Drug May Be Your Problem

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Publisher : Da Capo Lifelong Books
ISBN 13 : 073821180X
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (382 download)

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Book Synopsis Your Drug May Be Your Problem by : Peter Breggin

Download or read book Your Drug May Be Your Problem written by Peter Breggin and published by Da Capo Lifelong Books. This book was released on 2007-09-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When first published in 1999, Your Drug May Be Your Problem was ahead of its time. The only book to provide an uncensored description of the dangers involved in taking every kind of psychiatric medication, it was also the first and only book to explain how to safely stop taking them. In the time elapsed, there have been numerous studies suggesting or proving the dangers of some psychiatric medications and even the FDA now acknowledges the problems; more studies are under way to determine their long-term and withdrawal effects. In the meantime, this book continues to be ever relevant and helpful. Fully updated to include study results and new medications that have come to market, Your Drug May Be Your Problem will help countless readers exert control over their own psychiatric treatment.

Psychopathology

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Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 0470257229
Total Pages : 721 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (72 download)

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Book Synopsis Psychopathology by : W. Edward Craighead

Download or read book Psychopathology written by W. Edward Craighead and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-06-23 with total page 721 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edited and written by true leaders in the field, Psychopathology provides comprehensive coverage of adult psychopathology, including an overview of the topic in the context of the DSM. Individual chapters cover the history, theory, and assessment of Axis I and Axis II adult disorders such as panic disorder, social anxiety, bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, and borderline personality disorder.

Treatment Of Depression In Managed Care

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135062609
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (35 download)

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Book Synopsis Treatment Of Depression In Managed Care by : Mark Mays

Download or read book Treatment Of Depression In Managed Care written by Mark Mays and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-28 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published in 1997, Treatment of Depression in Managed Care is a valuable contribution to the field of Psychiatry/Clinical Psychology.

Blaming the Brain

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0743237870
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (432 download)

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Book Synopsis Blaming the Brain by : Elliot Valenstein

Download or read book Blaming the Brain written by Elliot Valenstein and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2002-02 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Blaming the Brain Elliott Valenstein exposes the many weaknesses inherent in the scientific arguments supporting the widely accepted theory that biochemical imbalances are the main cause of mental illness. He lays bare the commercial motives of drug companies and their huge stake in expanding their markets. This provocative book will force patients, practitioners, and prescribers alike to rethink the causes of mental illness and the methods by which we treat it.

Satan's Counterfeit Healing

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Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 153264230X
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (326 download)

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Book Synopsis Satan's Counterfeit Healing by : Lawrence E. Burkholder

Download or read book Satan's Counterfeit Healing written by Lawrence E. Burkholder and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Christian church worldwide has been taken prisoner by Satan’s counterfeit healing.” This statement is based on the author’s personal experience, modest exposure to the Toronto Blessing, observation of parachurch healing ministries, and extensive historical reconstructions. Satan’s Counterfeit Healing presents and evaluates Satan’s supernatural healing from the Paleolithic period (ca. 45000 BCE) to the contemporary church. The guiding thesis is that Satan and his demonic surrogates perform miracles which are evident as psi paranormal phenomena. These manifestations include physical and exorcistic supernatural healings. Paleolithic and Neolithic periods produced Great Mother goddess worship and healing, which have persisted ever since. These idolatries, combined with OT nature gods, were a backdrop to Jesus’ true miracles. For two thousand years of church history there’s been a tug-of-war between true and false healing. Mother goddess as Mariological shrine healing joined with natural and demonic magic, and esoteric energy psi. Alongside these the Holy Spirit has raised up genuine healers and their ministries. Modern healing is marked by energy counterfeits and faith healing, the latter especially accompanied by trance, false prophecy, and psi transformations. True divine healing can be recovered when Christians repudiate nature gods, reject false prophecy, and restore proper eschatology.

A Spiritual Hypothesis

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Publisher : AuthorHouse
ISBN 13 : 1524652369
Total Pages : 566 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (246 download)

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Book Synopsis A Spiritual Hypothesis by : Daniel Punzak

Download or read book A Spiritual Hypothesis written by Daniel Punzak and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2017-04-06 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional Western religion explains that each human has a spiritual aspect called a soul. However, several passages in the Bible allude to humans having a soul and a spirit. Dan has explored this idea and found numerous modern psychological findings that support this notion. Shamanism and some Eastern religious concepts also support this idea. Diverse concepts such as creativity and mental illness can be explained by the idea that two spiritual forms are in each human.

Users and Abusers of Psychiatry

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000451798
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Users and Abusers of Psychiatry by : Lucy Johnstone

Download or read book Users and Abusers of Psychiatry written by Lucy Johnstone and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-22 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Users and Abusers of Psychiatry is a radically different, critical account of day-to-day practice in psychiatric settings. Using real-life examples and her own experience as a clinical psychologist, Lucy Johnstone argues that the traditional way of treating mental distress can often exacerbate people's original difficulties, leaving them powerless and re-traumatised. She draws on a range of evidence to present a very different understanding of psychiatric breakdown than that found in standard medical textbooks, and to suggest new ways forward. The extended introduction to this Classic Edition brings the book up to date by revisiting its themes and tracing the changes in mental health practice over the last three decades. The book’s accessibility and clarity have ensured that it remains a classic in a growing field, and it is as relevant today as when it was first published. Users and Abusers of Psychiatry is a challenging but ultimately inspiring read for all who are involved in mental health – whether as professionals, students, service users, relatives or interested lay people.