This collection touches on a wide range of anthropological issues, including family and marriage, myths, and rites, the environment and its representation, and constraint and freedom. The essays encompass more than forty years of analysis and constrain arguments that are as relevant today as they were thirty years ago. "Hardly a field remains untouched—sociobiology, linguistics, botany, genetics, psychiatry, esthetics, ecology, politics, neuroscience, education, morality, psychology. . . . It's all breathtaking and alarming, some of it wonderful, some of it ridiculous. . . . At times the experience is exhilarating."—Richard A. Shweder, New York Times Book Review

Focus in the media on the risks posed to ordinary people has become increasingly strong in recent years - particularly on those risks popularly perceived to be posed by the mentally ill. But how justified is this concern? How do we best manage so-called dangerous people? In Will They Do It Again? Herschel Prins considers the issue of public protection within a broad context of risk in society generally, examining the concerns arising in contemporary society from dealing with uncertainty. It is argued that public fear over the danger posed by the mentally ill is at odds with the evidence, and that much of the concern is focused on a small number of high-profile cases. Prins goes on to examine such cases where management of the mentally ill has failed and sets out suggestions for improvements in practice. Will They Do It Again? cuts through popular misunderstanding and media hype over risk to give a clear, unbiased picture of the real risks to society from the mentally ill and how best they can be contained and managed, and will prove invaluable to a range of practitioners involved in the fields of criminal justice and psychiatry.

Anticipating one of the central findings of post-Freudian psychiatry, he argues that "truth" is irrelevant to the work of therapy. He contrasts the negative externalization of will, which leads to denial and guilt, with the creative power of will, tracing this conflict in both the individual and the history of human society. Rank's development of will psychology led him to a philosophy of the psychological, outlined in Truth and Reality . Here he explores the psychological determinants of the relationship of inner world to outer reality.

During the 1960s, traditional thinking about crime and its punishment, deviance and its control, came under radical attack. The discipline of criminology split into feuding factions, and various schools of thought emerged, each with quite different ideas about the nature of the crime problem and its solutions. These differences often took political form, with conservative, liberal, and radical supporters, and the resulting controversies continue to reverberate throughout the fields of criminology and sociology, as well as related areas such as social work, social policy, psychiatry, and law. Stanley Cohen has been at the center of these debates in Britain and the United States. This volume is a selection of his essays, written over the past fifteen years, which contribute to and comment upon the major theoretical conflicts in criminology during this period. Though associated with the "new" or radical criminology, Cohen has always been the first to point out its limitations particularly in translating its theoretical claims into real world applications. His essays cove a wide range of topics-political crime, the nature of individual responsibility, the implications of new theories for social work practice, models of crime used in the Third World, banditry and rebellion, and the decentralization of social control. Also included is a previously unpublished paper on how radical social movements such as feminism deal with criminal law. Many criminology textbooks present particular theories or research findings. This book uniquely reviews the main debates of the last two decades about just what the role and scope of the subject should be.

Thomas Szasz has been challenging the very existence of "mental illness" for over twenty-five years. His advocacy of freedom of choice and the abolition of involuntary psychiatry has made him America's most controversial psychiatrist. The Therapeutic State is a unique collection of topical essays about what the author calls "one of the grandest illusions of our age, mental illness, and the quixotic crusade against it." Pivoting his analysis on news-making events, Szasz exposes the fallacies of our present penchant for interpreting the behavior of "sane" persons as goal-directed and therefore sensible, and the behavior of "insane" persons as caused by a "mental illness" and therefore senseless. In a series of diverse short pieces, originally published in newspapers and magazines, the author shows us that individual liberty and responsibility are indivisible, and that we cannot protect ourselves against coercive psychiatry's threats to liberty so long as we persist in using psychiatric ideas and interventions to evade responsibility. Szasz's recommendation is simple but radical: So-called mental patients should be treated like other people - as no more subject to loss of liberty or entitled to excuses from responsibility than anyone else. Psychiatrists should be treated like other professionals - having no more power to inculpate innocent persons or to expurgate guilty ones than, say, accountants or architects. In short, our aim should be to disarm psychiatrists, much as the Founding Fathers disarmed priests. Nothing less can free us from the "benefits" and "harms" of the Therapeutic State.

With all the intrigue and twists of a mystery, Questions for Freud uncovers the paradoxes that riddle psychoanalysis today and traces them to Freud's vacillation at key points in his work--and from there to a traumatic event in Freud's life. What role did censored family history play in shaping Freud's psychological inquiries, promoting and impeding them by turns? With this question in mind, Nicholas Rand and Maria Torok develop a new biographical and conceptual approach to psychoanalysis, one that outlines Freud's contradictory theories of mental functioning against the backdrop of his permanent lack of insight into crucial and traumatic aspects of his immediate family's life. Taking us through previously unpublished documents and Freud's dreams, his clinical work and institutional organization, the authors show how a shameful event in 1865 that shook Freud and his family can help explain the internal clashes that later beset his work--on the origins of neurosis, reality, trauma, fantasy, sexual repression, the psychoanalytic study of literature, and dream interpretation. Steeped in the history, theory, and practice of psychoanalysis, this book offers a guide to the wary, a way of understanding the flaws and contradictions of Freud's thought without losing sight of its significance. This book will alter the terms of the current debate about the standing of psychoanalysis and Freud.

In recalling the process of helping patients ferret out the past from the deep recesses of their minds, To Wrestle with Demons offers a rare glimpse of a psychiatrist's innermost thoughts about how his work affects patients, deeply moves him, and reflects the society in which we live.

Book by Ellis, A.

Volumes have been dedicated to madness, but sanity is rarely mentioned. We can define the mad, but how do we classify the sane? In Going Sane, psychoanalyst and writer Adam Phillips delves deep into history, philosophy, literature and his own experiences to address questions that we rarely ask about ourselves, taking us on an engrossing journey in which we learn many things - including some of what it takes to be happy in the modern world.

Soviet Psychiatry is a comprehensive book written by Joseph Wortis that provides an in-depth analysis of the development of psychiatry in the Soviet Union. The book covers the period from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to the 1970s, highlighting the political, social, and economic factors that influenced the evolution of Soviet psychiatry. Wortis examines the role of psychiatry in the Soviet Union's political system, including its use as a tool of repression and control. He also discusses the impact of Soviet psychiatry on the international community, including its influence on the development of psychiatric theory and practice in other countries. The book provides a detailed account of the controversies surrounding Soviet psychiatry, including the diagnosis of political dissidents as mentally ill and the use of psychiatric hospitals as prisons. Wortis draws on his own experiences as a psychiatrist in the Soviet Union, as well as interviews with other experts in the field, to provide a nuanced and insightful analysis of this complex topic. Overall, Soviet Psychiatry is an important resource for anyone interested in the history of psychiatry, Soviet history, or the intersection of politics and medicine.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

One of the most influential child psychiatrists of the twentieth century, Donald J. Cohen (1940-2001) made groundbreaking contributions to the study of autism and developmental disabilities, Tourette’s syndrome, developmental psychopathology, child psychoanalysis, and children’s adaptation to trauma. As director of the Yale Child Study Center from 1983 to 2001, he fostered international collaborations and innovative approaches to the study of children’s mental health. This book contains a selection of some of his most enduring and influential writings. Showcasing Dr. Cohen’s distinctive approach, these essays--one of which is published here for the first time--address a wide range of topics including autobiographical writings; childhood psychiatric disorders; the role of play fantasy, aggression, and violence in childhood; and research ethics and mentorship.

Paperback with Notes

Das erste Handbuch, das eine tiefgreifende, interdisziplinäre Analyse über bio- und psychosoziale Faktoren durchführt, Faktoren, die darüber entscheiden, ob die geistige Entwicklung eines Kind sich normal oder abnormal vollzieht. Dieses bahnbrechende 4-bändige Nachschlagewerk bietet einen aktuellen Überblick über das Forschungsgebiet. Es entstand unter der Schirmherrschaft der führenden internationalen Organisation zur Kindesentwicklung - die World Association of Infant Mental Health (WAIMH) - und enthält Beiträge von führenden internationalen Forschern, Klinikärzten und Wissenschaftlern. Dieser 1. Band "Perspectives on Infant Mental Health" beschäftigt sich schwerpunktmäßig mit drei großen Themenbereichen: mit Geschichte und Theorie der geistigen Gesundheit des Kindes, mit kulturübergreifenden Aspekten und dem soziokulturellen Kontext, wobei jeweils Beispiele aus verschiedenen Länder und Kulturen angeführt werden. (01/00)

In the six essays contained in this text the author reflects on the ethical implications of psychoanalytical insight. Among the topics covered are: Freud's discovery that the human mind can only be studied through a partnership between observer and observed; how clinical evidence is made up of a unique mixture of subjective and objective; an observation on the way issues of identity affect not only individuals but classes of people; and an examination of the links between ego formation and institutions and traditions. Erikson also discusses the origins of ethics and looks at psychiatry as the pragmatic Western version of the universal journey to self-awareness.

"Either you are with us or you are with the Terrorists!" President Bush exclaimed in a joint session of Congress ten days after the September 11 attacks. Even though the war on terrorism and the discourse surrounding it were ostensibly unleashed to protect freedom and enhance democracy, they have actually empowered authoritarian elements of state power and relegated human rights to the margins of the political arena. In From the Margins of Globalization: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights , Neve Gordon assembles work of leading intellectuals and rights activists from around the globe. While highlighting the importance of human rights, each essay in this volume also encourages a critical perspective, stretching, as it were, the conception of human rights beyond its current borders. Whether it's Iranian premier, Mohammad Khatami, writing on the clash of civilizations, Étienne Balibar thinking through universalism, racism, and sexism, or Ruchama Marton discussing the relation between human rights and psychiatry, this book comprises a challenge to some of the dominant worldviews circulating in the west. Anyone studying human rights or globalization in the fields of anthropology, philosophy, political science, political theory, economy and sociology should have a copy of this volume.

Two men were shot and killed in the office of the Montreal Cotton Company in Valleyfield, Quebec, on a night in 1895. A third victim, shot through the head, managed to survive. Charged with the murders was Valentine Shortis, a young Irish immigrant. His trial, the longest on record at the time in Canada, was played out against one of the most dramatic periods in Canadian political history. Before the case closed it had involved some of the most important names in the country. Did Valentine Shortis commit murder in the course of a bold robbery, as the Crown and the citizens of Valleyfield believed? Or was he insane, as the defence argued and the leading psychiatrists in Canada contended? The best-known lawyers in Quebec fought out the issues in the courts, while politicians used the case to further their careers. As the trial dragged on it became part of the intricate political tapestry of the day, along with the Manitoba schools question, the revolt of the 'nest of traitors' from the Mackenzie Bowell's cabinet, and the federal election of 1896, in which Laurier used the Shortis case to help him become prime minister. As well as Laurier, other prominent Canadians made appearances in the case. Lady Aberdeen, the wife of the govenor-general, mysteriously put a word in the ear of Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper, the young minister of justice. We meet the larger-than-life psychiatrists, C.K. Clarke and R.M. Bucke, sex-educator Arthur Beall, and even Mackenzie King and his spirits. Martin Friedland has vividly reconstructed one of the most dramatic criminal cases in Canada's history. Along the way he reveals much about our political past, the criminal process, French-English relations, and the history of psychiatry and corrections. Above all he tells a fascinating and compelling tale of murder and politics.

Vampires are the most fearsome and fascinating of all creatures of folklore. For the first time, detailed accounts of the vampire and how its tradition developed in different cultures are gathered in one volume by eminent folklorist Alan Dundes. Eleven leading scholars from the fields of Slavic studies, history, anthropology, and psychiatry unearth the true nature of the vampire from its birth in graveyard lore to the modern-day psychiatric patient with a penchant for drinking blood. The Vampire: A Casebook takes this legend out of the realm of literature and film and back to its dark beginnings in folk traditions. The essays examine the history of the word “vampire;” Romanian vampires; Greek vampires; Serbian vampires; the physical attributes of vampires; the killing of vampires; and the possible psychoanalytic underpinnings of vampires. Much more than simply a scary creature of the human imagination, the vampire has been and continues to haunt the lives of all those who encounter it—in reality or in fiction.

In the culminating volume of her nationalism trilogy, Greenfeld argues that we have overlooked the connection between egalitarian society and mental illness. Modern nationalism rests on principles of popular sovereignty, equality, and secularism. Citizens of the twenty-first century enjoy unprecedented freedom to become the authors of their personal destinies. Empowering as this is, it also places them under enormous psychic strain. They must constantly appraise their identities, manage their desires, and calibrate their place within society. For vulnerable individuals, this pressure is too much. Training her analytic eye on extensive case histories in manic depression and schizophrenia, Greenfeld contends that these illnesses are dysfunctions of selfhood caused by society's overburdening demands for self-realization. In her rigorous diagnosis, madness is a culturally constituted malady