Product Description
Univ. of Rochester, NY. Provides clinicians with practical treatment recommendations for the optimal care of individuals with schizophrenia. Presents an integrated, uniform approach and covers treatment practices which are based on scientific evidence and expert opinion. Case studies are included. DNLM: Schizophrenia--therapy. ... Read more

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The eleventh and final volume in Fantagraphics' acclaimed "Bodé Library" (produced with the cooperation of the Bodé estate and collectors around the world) focuses on Bodé's introspective, personal stories. Presented in a smaller, more intimate format than earlier volumes, it will reprint his long out-of-print early caveman masterpiece "The Man," as well as the autobiographical title strip "Schizophrenia" (in full color for the first time anywhere, shot from the original art!), plus a wealth of rare and hard-to-find illustrations, strips, and other goodies—including at least a few surprises for even the most hardcore Bodé collector. Bodé (pronounced "bo-dee") is considered the king in the world of graphitti/aerosol art. His vast imagination gave birth to entire universes and characters, including Cheech Wizard, Junkwaffel, and many more. Although he passed away in 1975, before the graffiti scene even took off, Bodé's legacy was cemented when graffiti greats like Kel 139 and Dondi actively borrowed from and paid tribute to the underground great. More recently, his work has been referenced in song by hip hop legends like the Beastie Boys. As such, Bodé occupies a truly unique niche in the world of underground comics, embraced by both the hippie counterculture of the 1960s as well as the hip hop community of the 1990s. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Bode's Head
You have to be a fan of Vaughn Bode to like this book.Its more of a trip through his skull than his artwork.Not a kids book at all so be forewarned.But it does start to explain how his creation of Cheech Wizard came about.

Great !
For fans of Bodé, is a must. Actually for any fan of comics, art or even literature.

awesome pice of work
this is just an insane piece of work... vaughn bode is just a trip and a half with his writing. wow!!! ... Read more

Product Description
Second author, Philip Harvey, is with Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City, NY. Reviews recent research on the impairment of cognitive functioning in schizophrenia and covers how wide-ranging it can be, what the clinical implications are, and how it can be treated. Softcover. ... Read more

Product Description
I Schizophrenia, as the title implies is a first hand account of the journey of the author, as a schizophrenic. It is a campfire story, which dares to thrill the imagination and blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction. Brent Carpenter, the schizophrenic and the author, wells knows the content is not suited to convince the doctor or scientist, who may as well be armchair politicians in relation to the extreme journeys Brent undertakes while in psychosis- the altered and most drastic symptom of Schizophrenia.

It is also a coming of age story wherein the young man must reconcile spiritual beliefs and experiences with a society in which he cannot quite place himself and belong. The book handles the advent of his Schizophrenia and the journeys through a few different psychoses and the recovery from these with his integration back into ‘normality’. It is a serious challenge on what it means to be boringly sane and illustrates that deep psychological ground can be broken and walked travelling in a party of one. The progress he makes could never have been achieved travelling through the cityscape in groups as tourist.

Brent trades in his innocence as he takes you through an early search for love to the madness it eventually brought him, spurred on by a dose of tick bite fever and the factor of some drug experimentation. Although many who read it want to know what drugs he was taking to have allowed such experiences, this is actually the crunch.
Rendezvous with angels, ‘Grandmother Spider’ and various ‘agents of psychosis’ could only been achieved by following mystic paths from the front of his city door out into the rivers and parks we so often just drive past. These meetings were reliant on not some drug induced psychosis but the real unabashed thing that were to continue as weeks in an altered state - rescued by modern medications.

The language of the book is designed to allow one to ‘see into psychosis’/ get a feel for it and as the story continues, the language becomes less florid as Brent grows into the person of maturity and some wisdom. The style then is one of reflection as are the intermittent chapters on each recovery-from a number of psychoses. By some miracle he doesn’t lose his functionality and remains a survivor personality – able to integrate vast and polar extremes into his way of being. Ultimately the Brent learns to love himself and is not willing to be victim-orientated, allowing a look back into time, and arrival at explanations, that only an artist’s mind could conjure.

What the book leaves behind in one is a sense of time-old energies, that we are beginning to forget as a modern civilization. As such it is an exercise in archetypal information, psychology, spirituality and even some anthropology.

It is not a story of horrors because Brent has carried a light through the darkest spaces of his own mind out into his surroundings, and there found that the supernatural is more than just present, but must actually and surely have an agenda too. It is just one of those stories, that well…just has to be told.

... Read more

Product Description
Schizophrenia is a widespread and serious mental illness that is amenable not just to drug treatment but also to other therapies, as scientific evidence clearly shows. This volume in the new series, Advances in Psychotherapy -- Evidence-Based Practice, provides therapists with practical, evidence-based guidance on diagnosis and treatment -- and does so in a uniquely "reader-friendly" manner. The book is both a compact "how-to" reference, for use by professional clinicians in their daily work, as well as an ideal educational resource for students and for practice-oriented continuing education.

The most important feature of the book is that it is practical and "reader-friendly." It has a similar structure to others in the series, and is a compact and easy-to-follow guide covering all aspects of practice that are relevant in real-life. Tables, boxed clinical "pearls," and marginal notes assist orientation, while checklists for copying and summary boxes provide tools for use in daily practice.

The series has been developed and is edited with the support of the Society of Clinical Psychology (APA Division 12). The Society is planning a system of home study continuing education courses based on the series that an individual can complete on the web. ... Read more

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Product Description
Research shows that neuro and social cognition have a decisive influence on functional outcome in people with schizophrenia. In this publication, world renown experts summarize the latest research on approaches to assessing and treating cognition in schizophrenia. The book is organized to take the reader through the steps from definitions and assessment of cognition to research on the relevance of cognition in everyday life, to chapters which focus on treatments for cognitive disorders. The reader will learn about the Nimh Matrics initiative which has provided clinicians and researchers with the tools to define and assess neuro and social cognitive functioning in people with schizophrenia. Then the treatments for neuro and social cognitive deficits are discussed in several chapters which give an overview of cognitive remediation approaches, accompanied by concrete treatment examples. The reader will also learn about the latest results of pharmacological interventions for cognitive deficits. A final chapter focuses on the importance of addressing motivational deficits when treating cognition, and offers treatment approaches to enhance motivation.This publication is essential reading for clinicians and researchers in the fields of psychiatry, psychology as well as students and other professions working with people who have schizophrenia. ... Read more

Product Description

Can biological and psychological interventions be integrated in the treatment of psychosis?

Throughout the world, access to psychotherapeutic and psychosocial treatments for the psychoses varies significantly, with many people diagnosed with psychotic disorders receiving only medication as treatment. Psychotherapies for the Psychoses considers ways that this gap can be bridged through theoretical, cultural and clinical integration.

The theme of integration offers possibilities for trainees and experienced mental health professionals from diverse orientations and cultural perspectives to strengthen alliances for tackling the gap in availability of treatments. In this volume contributors discuss:

• Theoretical integration across the psychological therapies for psychoses
• Global perspectives on psychosocial approaches for psychoses
• Integrating psychotherapeutic thinking and practice into 'real world' settings.

Psychotherapies for the Psychoses explores different approaches from a variety of theoretical perspectives, providing significant encouragement for mental health practitioners to broaden the range of humane psychotherapeutic possibilities for people suffering from the effects of psychosis.

Product Description
Can early, need-adapted treatment prevent the long-terms effects of psychosis?
How important is phase-specific treatment?
Evolving Psychosis explores the success of psycho-social treatments for psychosis in helping patients recover more quickly and stay well longer.
Mental health professionals from all over the world share their clinical experience and scientific findings to shed new light on the issues surrounding need-specific treatment. They cover: The Nature of Psychosis, Early Intervention in Psychosis, Phase-Specific Treatment of Psychosis & The Need for Integration.Particular attention is paid to the how treatment can be improved with individually tailored treatment programmes, early intervention, more integration between psychological treatments, and new and better diagnostic concepts.
This book incorporates new and controversial ideas that will stimulate discussion regarding the benefits of early, need-adapted treatment.It will be of interest to psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals interested in psycho-social approaches to psychosis. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (24)

Blue Kool-Aid
There's enough postmodern nonsense in this book to start a cult.Which, sadly, has happened.

D & G's credibility in the universities has been established by ideologues interested in tickling their fantasies of being Continental philosophers and their zealous quest to make of the raw material of the world a carnival of language games.

Exhibiting almost no understanding (or research) of what rhizomes, plateaus, wolves, or the fundamental laws of nature are, Deleuze and Guattari simply pretend, for hundreds of pages, that they Are Not.Spin in the name of jouissance, religious doctrine in the name of a critique of reason, and frankly ridiculous, nonsensical phrases (A plateau is an animal, a wolf is a "nondecomposable variable distance") pepper this work with sophomoric euphoria.

And the academic humanities crowd bought it hook, line, and sinker.

If you want to drink the Kool-Aid, then that's your path.Worship the god of your language game.But don't offer it up as sound, anymore than declaring that a black labrador retriever is telling you what needs to be done next in a language that only you can understand.Obfuscation is not wisdom.Masturbation is not sex.Intelligent design does not refute random configuration and evolution.Ideology is not scholarship.

The emperors wear no clothes.

We're a little lost now
Best line in the book, as it sums it up for me and was just about the only part I understood. In Plateau 3, "The Geology of Morals," the authors write, first line of 14th paragraph: "We're a little lost now."

Exactly. Lost.

Worth one's time
To those who attack this for not being philosophy, fair enough, it may not be philosophy. I quote now from Shelley's Defence of Poetry:

"In the infancy of society every author is necessarily a poet, because language itself is poetry; and to be a poet is to apprehend the true and the beautiful, in a word, the good which exists in the relation, subsisting, first between existence and perception, and secondly between perception and expression. Every original language near to its source is in itself the chaos of a cyclic poem: the copiousness of lexicography and the distinctions of grammar are the works of a later age, and are merely the catalogue and the form of the creations of poetry.
But poets, or those who imagine and express this indestructible order, are not only the authors of language and of music, of the dance, and architecture, and statuary, and painting: they are the institutors of laws, and the founders of civil society, and the inventors of the arts of life, and the teachers, who draw into a certain propinquity with the beautiful and the true that partial apprehension of the agencies of the invisible world which is called religion. Hence all original religions are allegorical, or susceptible of allegory, and, like Janus, have a double face of false and true. Poets, according to the circumstances of the age and nation in which they appeared, were called, in the earlier epochs of the world, legislators, or prophets: a poet essentially comprises and unites both these characters. For he not only beholds intensely the present as it is, and discovers those laws according to which present things ought to be ordered, but he beholds the future in the present, and his thoughts are the germs of the flower and the fruit of latest time. Not that I assert poets to be prophets in the gross sense of the word, or that they can foretell the form as surely as they foreknow the spirit of events: such is the pretence of superstition, which would make poetry an attribute of prophecy, rather than prophecy an attribute of poetry. A poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one; as far as relates to his conceptions, time and place and number are not."

Yes, this book may be delusional in its conclusions at times, it may make unfounded claims, it may lack philosophical rigor as it were but that does not mean it is not instructive or inspiring or a most productive use of one's time. Say we stop calling it philosophy; would you read it if we called it a poem, and called Deleuze and Guattari poets?

You blew it off in grad school, now go back and read it....
Why? Because your critical theory seminar was probably oversimplifying, and you're missing out on a radical piece of performance in book form. Thousand Plateaus is not 400 pages about rhizomes or nomads.That's just the vocabulary. And, I disagree with some of the other reviews here.It's not a torture to read; it's just not talking down to you.It's put together like a large circular sentence.You start somewhere in middle, or maybe at the beginning or end, not sure.You have to play catchup at first, but you will get the hang of it.
If it sounds like the structure of certain recent films (say, by David Lynch, Robert Altman, Paul Thomas Anderson) or works of fiction (like by Samuel Delaney, Haruki Murakami, or Thomas Pynchon) or minimal techno, or most museum biennials these days, then good, it should.Thousand Plateaus help to establish a framework for all of those things.
The book tries to establish a system of political, psychological and semiotic descriptions, always as a mode of resistance to all kinds of fascism, and D & G take the conflation of those levels as a given. Not just in the world of theory but also in how you think, and that's why it's written in such a particularly dense way. It tries very hard to be nonoppressive, and generous too, but for lots of people it can be a frustrating adjustment, accustomed as we are to writing that tries to be as flat and simple as possible. This book reads the way it thinks, and these two definitely prefer finesse to simplicity. Once you get into it, you may find that it's the best thing you've read for as long as you can remember. Or, at least that it makes you think in ways you don't while reading other books.
Being brainy continentals, these guys make reference to a store of intellectual history you won't be able to relate to.They namedrop like MCs, and use a highly layered prose that refers to about a dozen things at once. It probably helps if you've heard of Hjelmslev, Bergson, Liebniz and the rest of the counter-canon of Western thought, but don't let it stop you if you haven't.
If you tackle this thick, thorny thing, here's some advice: Don't read this as an assignment, but approach it like a weird painting. Go slowly and enjoy the twists and turns.Read each section twice before proceeding to the next. Enjoy the poetry that D & G employ.Take notes.When you get to the end, go back and reread the first (and maybe second) section.

a magnum opus of the late 20th century
There's so much to appreciate in this book, touching as it does on every subject you can think of. You won't be able to understand everything but for me at least, I don't feel a lot of pressure to try and understand everything, but I'm fine with just reading on and every page or so, something will click and open a new way of looking at things. I'm not an expert in Deleuze and Guattari, and this is my first book by any philospher in what people lump into the category of 'Postmodern'. So I can't compare it with others, but my sense is I've chosen the right book to read, or at least, place to start. ... Read more

Product Description
Who's Crazy Here? is a concise guide for people seeking options to psychiatric drugs. Author Gracelyn Guyol ended her bipolar disorder in 2002 by addressing its underlying causes instead of treating the symptoms forever with drugs. When readers of her first book confessed difficulty "wading through" the length and science in most health books, Gracelyn created this 113 page guide to recovery fromADD/ADHD, Addiction, Eating Disorders, Anxiety, PTSD, Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, and Autism.Part I covers remedies for the most frequent causes of mental dysfunction: inadequate brain fuel, nutrient imbalances, disruptive substances, four "genetic quirks," flawed digestion, food allergies/sensitivities, environmental toxins, and emotional trauma. Chapters in Part II focus on a specific diagnosis and its unique causes. Innovative practitioners are introduced who have developed effective, drug-free treatments. Each chapter concludes with bulleted Steps to Recovery to discuss with your holistic practitioner.Since it can be difficult to locate doctors trained to treat mental illness without drugs, Chapter 1 provides key words, web sites, and tips for finding one using the Internet. For readers who want more scientific data and details, DVDs, books, and web sites are recommended throughout.Learn about practitioners using methods developed by the late Abram Hoffer, MD, PhD, who enabled 75% of his schizophrenic patients to live "normal" lives. Discover the clinic that ended Gracelyn's bipolar mania in just four months, which has been helping mental patients for two decades. Most addiction programs achieve long-term abstinence for only 3-10%. The approach Gracelyn recommends that addresses the physical causes of addiction enjoys 60-74% success.Even children with autism, the most complex disorder, frequently recover.Explore how holistic treatments can help you or a loved one restore mental health. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

HOPE
This book should be subtitled:HOPE.For that is what it gives to so many people, after so many years of struggle.For me, it has been over 30 years of doctors, therapists, medication management, specialists, etc.This book has truly changed my life, in a big, big way.I have found some local medical professionals who are helping wean me off my medicines.I am feeling better than I ever have, and I'm eating healthier than I ever have.

Restorative Programs for Mental Illness
Who's Crazy Here?
Steps to Recovery Without Drugs
by Gracelyn Guyol,
Ajoite Publishing, Stonington, Connecticut, 2010.
124 pages, ISBN 9780578061764

Recovery from mental illness without drugs? In today's high-stress world, many people experience episodes of anxiety, depression or psychosis. Everybody knows that modern psychiatrists prescribe pills while psychoanalysts prefer talk therapy. Until people develop a mental illness, they don't learn about the complications, the problems and the difficulties that many vulnerable patients experience during episodes, just when they need quality care. The author of this book asks an important question - Who's Crazy Here?

Author Gracelyn Guyol, herself a recovered patient, healed her bipolar disorder in 2002. She remains mentally balanced by taking a daily regimen of vitamins, minerals and other nutritional supplements, avoiding toxins that cause her brain to malfunction and not eating gluten. Her book shares several steps which helped her recover from a serious mental illness.

Part 1 gently outlines Sherlock's Process, a practical approach for identifying mood disruptors, medical conditions and trigger factors. Without analyzing brain chemistry or psychiatry, Guyol politely but firmly encourages readers to consider the causes of their symptoms and find competent health professionals who treat patients safely and effectively.

Part 2 has step-by-step programs for recovering from ADD, addiction, eating disorders, anxiety, autism, depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Each chapter suggests steps for recovery, offers helpful advice and lists reference books and web sites with patient-friendly information.

Who's Crazy Here? explains that mental patients are not crazy to hope for recovery. Even if their psychiatrists only prescribe drugs, Gracelyn Guyol encourages patients to use Sherlock's Process to find health professionals who know how to diagnose and treat the root causes of mental illness, without relying on zombifying doses of prescription medications. The author does not overload readers with biochemistry, research reports or medical terms. Gracelyn knows that patients and families have to start with the basics. Her book presents the facts, concisely, clearly and persuasively. The tone is encouraging, supportive and respectful.

The author introduces two little-known psychiatrists, Dr. A. Hoffer and Dr. H. Osmond, who met in the 1950s in Saskatchewan, Canada. With hundreds of psychotic patients to care for and few effective treatments, they teamed up with medical scientists and clinical professionals to research the metabolic causes of schizophrenia and develop restorative treatments. They used healing doses of vitamins, minerals and other nutritional supplements to complement other treatments. Many of their patients recovered on an orthomolecular program.

Gracelyn Guyol wrote this informative book to help patients, families and caregivers find quality care and recover from a mental illness. Even busy psychiatrists can use this book to understand how a restorative program can complement other treatments. Guyol's book inspires patients to hope, learn and recover, even patients with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia.

Review by Bob Sealey, BSc, CA - SEAR Publications www.searpubl.ca
Author of Finding Care for Depression, Mental Episodes & Brain Disorders
90-Day Plan for Finding Quality Care

Fantastic information, get this book
I have studied natural health and wellness for over 25 years.Every so often, information comes along that makes me want to shout from the rooftops.That's what I'd like to do right now.If you are interested in health and wellness, struggle with (or care about someone who struggles with) ADHD, autism, addictions, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, or other chronic condition or persistent symptom that compromises the ability to live well and enjoy life, then read Gracelyn Guyol's concise holistic guide.
The first half of the book covers the nutritional, environmental, genetic, and emotional causes that contribute to most mental dysfunctions - good information for everyone.The second half focuses on specific diagnoses and their unique causes along with the innovative doctors who have developed effective, drug-free treatments.
I can't recommend this book strongly enough, and NOT just for those with diagnosed problems.Who's Crazy Here? is a handbook for all of us who want to optimize our lives.The information, resources and practitioners that Gracelyn has identified, distilled, and recommends are excellent and proven.I've never come across such a thorough yet concise and easy-to-read resource for natural health!
... Read more

Product Description
This collection of Dr. Searle's papers on schizophrenia is unquestionably the finest book on the subject yet published. Robert P. Knight, in his fine preface, notes that among Searle's attributes is a 'High degree of candor and personal humility.' This is an essential trait for anyone who, successful in treating schizophrenics, decides to write in order to help others make their way through the maze. The papers all feature a wealth of exactly appropriate clinical material.' - International Journal of Group Psychotherapy

Customer Reviews (2)

A Brilliant Work
Dr. Searles is brilliant in laying out thenceforth unrecognized patterns of intrapsychic and interpersonal dynamics experienced in working with the chronically schizophrenic population.When our present maelstrom of a love affair of tinkering with "biomedics" remedies itself--to a more ameliorative level--I think we might, perhaps, want to dash on off, purchase a copy of this book, and whatever you read, and re-read, will be of great benefit to you.His use of case illustrations blends with his presentation of theoretical views.

A Masterpiece
There are certain books every student of clinical psychology should read.This is one of them.This is Searles at his best--a classic.Not only does this book take you through the psychological maze of schizophrenia, it also guides you through the interpersonal dynamics of being a clinician working with seriously disturbed populations. ... Read more

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The author of the classic Surviving Schizophrenia and his colleagues present an important contribution to the ongoing debate on the origins of mental illness. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Is "mental" illness nurture or nature: Finally answered
Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are relatively rare. About 5% of population. So finding people to participate in research is difficult. Finding twins? Almost impossible.

This is the kind of study only these authors could do: find twins, where one is mentally ill and the other is not. Due to their stature in science they were able to do it. They wanted to explore if schizophrenia and manic depression are the result of genes, or is it acquired elsewhere.

This book, written in language for the non-scientific oriented answers these questions in depth. I won't tell you what they found, but the answer will surprise you and enlighten you and maybe even inspire you to support more research into serious mental illness.

BTW, this book will be of special extra interest to individuals with mental illness who are considering having children, because it gives perhaps the best genetic counseling you could ever get. ... Read more

Product Description
This book challenges the now widely held belief that most people diagnosed with schizophrenia will require long-term neuroleptic treatment, and that recovery is relatively unusual without it.It shows how a holistic approach which treats body, mind and sould can significantly improve the likelihood of healing and recovery, even for those with a long history of schizophrenia ... Read more

Product Description

This volume of the Handbook of Neurochemistry and Molecular Neurobiology focuses on neurochemical aspects of schizophrenia. Chapters cover the full range of schizophrenia symptoms and anatomical pathologies from neurochemical and molecular biology perspectives. Topics include changes in neurotransmitter systems, alteration in receptors, neurotransmitter release, genetic factors, protein alterations, and redox dysregulation.

Product Description
A complete guide to all aspects of schizophrenia. It explains what the illness is and how it is treated. Whether you are a sufferer, carer or professional worker, the book should lead to a greater understanding of the condition. ... Read more

Product Description
Seven controversial approaches to schiophrenia, each assuming a distinctive model, biological, psychological, or social, are presented by their leading exponents. Arnold and Edith Buss deal with such fundamental issues as: What is the nature of schiophrenia? What general approach does each theory represent? What does each theory assume, what evidence does it require for proof, and what follows if the theory is correct? While the various approaches covered here have many differences and few similarities, they are not all mutually contradictory, and several may be combined into a larger synthesis.From a biological point of view, schiophrenia is a disease like any other, originating in heredity, tissue malformation, and physiological abnormality. The biological approach is represented here by a theory focusing on genetic and neurological aspects. The psychological approach treats schiophrenia as a failure of adjustment. Within this framework there is considerable disagreement. One theory emphasies the cognitive problems of perceiving, thinking, and problem-solving; another centers on motivational disturbance, with its attendant problems of anxiety and withdrawal; and two theories focus on regressive behavior.Schiophrenia provides a stimulating basis for discussion by presenting the etiology of schiophrenia in terms of the most significant contemporary approaches. The juxtaposition of these viewpoints enables the professor to maximie students interest as well as their insight into the complexity of contradictory evidence and opinions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Don't buy this book - it's a con.
I received an email from amazon several months ago inviting me to pre-order this book which was due to be published in August 2008. I am doing a Masters which focuses on psychosis and have bought many similar titles. It sounded ideal. Seven approaches to schizophrenia, clearly and expertly explained. What the publishers and amazon fail to tell you is that book is actually 39 years old. It is completely out of date and utterly irrelevant.If it was a republished masterpeice by Searles, Laing or Perry it might be of interest. But it is not.It is compeletly beyond me why anyone would want to publish this or why anyone would want to read it.It's like 'Seven approaches to cancer' from 39 years ago - who would be interested in that except medical historians?Rip off, rip off, rip off. Waste of time and money. Very dissapointed with amazon. ... Read more

Product Description
A diagnosis of schizophrenia can be devastating. It is therefore crucial that those diagnosed are provided with complete, accurate information that explains what schizophrenia is, answers questions about what it means and helps them to come to terms with their illness. Understanding Your Schizophrenia Illness provides mental health professionals with a structured framework for delivering this information to clients. Developed by psychiatric nurse Chris Healy, it is a complete, educational resource that professionals and clients can work through together. Its six sections provide an overview of schizophrenia, its possible causes, its symptoms, treatments and how to cope with life post-diagnosis. Each section also includes questionnaires, case studies and FAQs. ... Read more

Product Description
Psychology of Schizophrenia shows that hallucinations and delusions are understandable reactions to life events and circumstances rather than symptoms of a supposed genetic predisposition or biological disturbance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Integrative Treatments for Psychotic Disorders
Book edited by 3 renowned specialists in the field of psychological treatments for Schizophrenia and Psychotic Disorders: John Read, PhD - Clinical Psychologist, specialist in the subject of childhood trauma and psychosis (emerging and very relevant research subject) and editor of the Scientific Journal Psychosis Making Sense of Madness (International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and Other Psychoses); the late Loren Mosher, MD - Psychiatrist, specialist in residential alternatives to psychiatric hospitalization (cf. Soteria) Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance, former chief of the NIMH's Center for the Studies of Schizophrenia and founder of the Scientific Journal Schizophrenia Bulletin; Richard Bentall, PhD - Clinical Psychologist, specialist in cognitive models of psychosis and author of "Madness Explained" Madness Explained: Psychosis and Human Nature and "Doctoring the Mind" Doctoring the Mind.

They bring together contributions from a wide range of skillful clinicians and researchers, encompassing a psychological approach to people suffering from psychotic disorders. The work presented is solid and grounded on scientific research, although it differs from the mainstream biological model of psychiatric disorders.

You will find 24 chapters divided in 3 parts:
I - The Illness Model of Schizophrenia
10 chapters challenging the current model of schizophrenia, questioning its bases, the history of this disease model, genetic studies, medication and biological methods of treatment.
II - Social and Psychological Approaches to Understanding Madness
7 chapters covering developmental issues (childhood trauma), psychotherapeutic treatments, family interaction and social context.
III - Evidence Based Psycho-Social Interventions
7 extremely relevant and important chapters, providing scientific evidence (research findings published in peer reviewed scientific journals) for psycho-social interventions.

The book gives an alternative view to the prevailing biological disease model of severe psychological disorders, offering complementary understanding for that conditions and showing the clinical relevance of psychological and social interventions. It is based on clinical evidence and scientific research, written in a clear and exciting way - the authors use a challenging attitude and sometimes a provocative style. That only increases the insight you can obtain from reading it.

Most recommended reading to both clinicians, researchers and students of mental health subjects. Essential for those who search for hope and a more humane model of assistance to those in severe distress.

Also consider buying:

Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Schizophrenic Psychoses: Past, Present and Future (The International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and Other Psychoses)

Psychoses: An Integrative Perspective (The International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and Other Psychoses)

Schizophrenia: Its Origins and Need-Adapted Treatment

Experiences of Schizophrenia: An Integration of the Personal, Scientific, and Therapeutic

Models of Madness
This book is a very good critique of the medical model of schizophrenia.Well researched, well written.

Well at least they are honest: this is an unabashadly one-sided exposition on schizophrenia
The authors mince no words about the purpose of this book. They spent the entire length of their work attempting to substantiate the viewpoint that schizophrenia does not exist in a biological sense but is more of a syndrome response to trauma and childhood abuse. While I agree with much of what they say on the overwhelming dominance and sometimes unhelpfulness of the biological psychiatric model, the medicalization of mental health "treatment," and the corruptive influence of the pharmaceutical industry, I simply found this work to be too biased and quite frankly wrong about much of what I have experienced as a professional in this field. It was not any eudcational bias (I was trained psychodynamically) that has led me to appreciate the benefits of the biopsychosocial model but on the contrary years of clinical experience. Any one with any meaningful experience working individuals with schizophrenia knows that there is no "cure" there are simply strategies for managing symptoms. Obviously therapy can be helpful and obviously so can medication. Antipsychotics do work and they can help. Yes they also have terrible side-effects and one must wonder whether the medicine is worse than the illness in some cases but to pretend that the advances in pharmaceutical psychiatry has not benefitted people who truly suffer from mental problems (especially psychosis and bipolar-spectrum disorders) is either incredibly myopic or has not worked in the field.

Amazingly, the idea that one can have traumatic experiences that trigger an inherent vulnerability towards psychosis seems to be lost on the authors...

Powerful Critique of the Medical Model
Over the past few decades, the psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries have almost completely silenced alternate viewpoints to the biological model of mental disorder. So this critique of the dominant paradigm comes as a breath of fresh air. The 23 scholar-contributors forcefully argue that "schizophrenia" is a scientifically meaningless and socially devastating label. Not only is there no unitary construct of "schizophrenia," these scholars argue, but complex social and environmental factors underlie both the patterns of diagnosis and the expressed symptoms.The authors painstakingly elucidate the roles of poverty, gender, racism, and - most importantly - childhood trauma in adult psychosis. They bring back the now-taboo role of family dynamics, including "expressed emotion" (a euphemism for hostile, critical and overinvolved parenting), communication deviance, and dysfunctional relationships between parents.

Starting with a history of the concept of schizophrenia and its use to incarcerate the poor, the authors move on to an exhaustive, well-researched, and easy-to-understand summary of decades of research findings debunking the biogenetic model. Regarding the role of trauma in the etiology of "schizophrenia," did you know that two-thirds of Israeli mental patients are Holocaust survivors, who have been beaten, strapped to beds, heavily drugged and often kept in solitary confinement for decades? That the structural and functional differences between the brains of "schizophrenics" and "normal" adults are the same differences as those between people who were traumatized versus not traumatized in childhood (e.g., overactive hypothalamic-adrenal-pituitary axis, cerebral atrophy, ventricular enlargements, reversed cerebral asymmetry, and neurotransmitter abnormalities)? Perhaps, some studies suggest, many of the "voices" of schizophrenia patients are thinly disguised expressions of past trauma, projected into the external, present world as a less-than-functional defense.

In the current market-driven paradigm, patients are said to have "insight" if they go along with the biological psychiatrist's viewpoint, which thoroughly discounts their experiences. Far from blaming people, an understanding of the non-biological causes of psychosis can engender hope and - as outlined in the final section of the book - lead to effective treatments.

I could go on, but the book touches so many subjects - psychotropic medications, electroconvulsive therapy, heredity, drug companies, therapies, and much more - that you just need to buy it and read it yourself.

A psychology text that actually works!
John Read's Models of Madness is the only psychology textbook I have ever read that pulls no punches when it comes to the mental health industry's misuse and abuse of its power. It provides, not a balanced viewpoint, but a "balancing viewpoint." Indeed it must, so as to counter the enormous colossus of wealth and influence which has become our mental health industry. It is a scholarly work, with an abundance of data to both describe the shortfalls and pitfalls of the mental health industry, as well as the techniques that have actually been proven to benefit mental-health consumers. There are actually ways to increase the happiness, comfort, quality of life and self-respect of clientele who have been pegged "incurable." ... Read more