This story of a father guiding his son from despair to hope is a chilling, inspiring journey through the mysterious tunnel of schizophrenia--a world once closed and forbidding, now suddenly radiating excitement as thousands of patients are, in effect, being reborn. Jeff Wyden, a bright, happy boy in childhood, began to withdraw in adolescence, and by the age of twenty-one was severely psychotic, disconnected from reality. He was schizophrenic. In the ensuing twenty-five years, Peter Wyden accompanied his son into a hell without certainties as they searched for a solution. We see them pass through the hands of more than fifty psychiatrists and countless hospitals, clinics, and halfway houses. Doctors and health-care providers help and sometimes hinder both father and son in their odyssey through hypnosis, electroshock, dozens of drug therapies, and disabling "side effects." Throughout their ordeal, the father's management of his son's managers is his daily task, self-assigned despite self-doubt. He is alternately tolerant and challenging while he observes and learns, always primed for more of Jeff's mercurial signs of new crises. Along the way we learn about the history of the treatment of schizophrenia, from barbaric stopgaps like prefrontal lobotomy to the biomedical treatments that have revolutionized psychiatry. And finally, there is the new drug Olanzapine--a godsend for Jeff, and reason for cheer. It is not a cure, but many consider it the safest, most effective treatment to date (the first of similar medications recently licensed by the Food and Drug Administration, with more on the way). The story of its development is told here for the first time. Until now, few of us have realized that two and a half million Americans, mostly young and intelligent, are schizophrenic, merely existing through the decades, separated from reason, rendered dysfunctional by the costly and little-understood disease. Fifty million people worldwide suffer from it. This compelling and enlightening book offers useful information about what can be done for them today--and the hope of more help to come.

Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science explores attempts to develop bodies of knowledge about sex from antiquity to the present day. Taking into account cognate sciences like zoology, anatomy, embryology and psychiatry, the volume analyses the shaping over the centuries of disciplines which came by 1900 to be called 'sexology'. Various contributions explore the interfaces between 'high' and 'low' sexual teachings, and the connections and tensions between popular and empirical sexual knowledge on the one hand and overtly scientific formulations. A major concern of the book is to investigate the ideological functions - in terms of group, class and gender - of sexual science, especially when incorporated into systems of legal, medical and political power. Among sexual liberals and radicals it has long been an article of faith that sexual science, sexual liberation and sexual fulfilment will all advance hand-in-hand. With the modern backlash against permissiveness, and against the background of AIDS, such views are being challenged. This new book offers an historical perspective upon such questions.

By 2050, the number of people aged sixty years and older with schizophrenia is expected to double and affect about 10 million people worldwide. Psychoses are among the most common experiences in later life, with a lifetime risk of 23 percent. As a result, there is a looming crisis in mental health care. Schizophrenia and Psychoses in Later Life is the first major multidisciplinary reference on these important disorders. The book provides guidelines for clinical care, research and policy that are consistent with the emerging paradigmatic changes occurring with respect to schizophrenia in later life. This book features multidisciplinary contributions from experts in the fields of biological psychiatry, social psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, social work, psychology, and neuropsychology that will help professionals to integrate services and attain the best outcomes. The text will guide psychiatrists, psychologists, gerontologists, policymakers, and social scientists in creating innovative new programs to help this underserved and growing population.

Problems that require resolution from a Halachic perspective are not infrequent, and there is certainly no dearth of dilemmas that should be addressed from a psychological standpoint. However, many problems involve both - and, although much has been written on psychologic-halachic issues, there has been little, if any, example of practical application. Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., an eminent psychiatrist who is well versed in halachah, has broad experience in both realms, and in their combined applications. In this book, he makes available some of his case material demonstrating an integrated approach to these sometimes thorny issues. Dr. Twerski's lucid responses to questions on specific life situations provide guidelines that can be of much broader relevance. Because he is convinced that most life-adjustment difficulties are the result of a distorted self-perception, with consequent low self-esteem, Dr. Twerski has prefaced his responses with several chapters on the vital role of a personal identity - hence the title, I am I. More than a fascinating review of other people's difficulties and their solutions, this is a book filled with insights that will enlighten countless people about themselves and the world around them. It is an invaluable contribution to self-knowledge in the light of Torah and psychology. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D., is a descendant of the founders of the Chassidic movement, whose philosophy he embraces and applies in his psychiatric practice. An ordained Rabbi, Dr. Twerski is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pitttsburgh School of Medicine and founder and Medical Director of Gateway Rehabilitation Center, Pittsburgh, Pa. Dr. Twerski's earlier works, Living Each Day, Living Each Week, Growing Each Day, and Smiling Each Day, have established his position as a Torah scholar who possesses psychological insights that enhance application of Torah principles to everyday life.

Provides psychological and psychiatric insight to criminal behavior by exploring criminology as a science and the human mind in relation to crime. Specifically addresses heredity and environment as causes of crime, and juvenile and war delinquency.

"The book is readable and challenging; readers will never see psychiatry in the same way again." -- Choice Reviews 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 illness. The radical differences between the coercive character of mental hospital practices in the public sphere, and the consensual character of psychotherapeutic practices in the private sphere, are thus destroyed. At the same time, as the scope of psychiatric coercion expands from the mental hospital to the psychiatrist's office, its reach extends into every part of society, from early childhood to old age. Thomas Szasz is professor of psychiatry emeritus at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York and Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, Washington, DC. He is the author of over two dozen books in fifteen languages, including The Myth of Mental Illness and most recently, Pharmacracy: Medicine and Politics in America . "The book is readable and challenging; readers will never see psychiatry in the same way again."-- Choice "Szasz now appears to have been transformed into an ally rather than an enemy of the National Health Service general adult psychiatrist. Szasz's project has always been to argue passionately for a boundry of demarcation around the responsibility and power of psychiatry....But what saves this book from being just another mugging of psychiatry is that Szasz does raise a fundamental question at the core of our discipline. If we restricted our attention only to those clients who wanted to see a psychiatrist, and disengaged from all those who really didn't, how different might our professional practice and experience be?"-- The British Journal of Psychiatry

Originally published in 1951, More About Psychiatry invites readers deeper into the evolving world of psychiatry. Writing with clarity, compassion, and a deep respect for the human mind, Binger demystifies the psychiatric profession for the general reader, offering insights into the emotional and psychological struggles that shaped people's lives at the time. Drawing on real-world cases and decades of clinical experience, Binger explores the roots of mental illness, the role of the psychiatrist, and the therapeutic relationship between doctor and patient. He addresses common misconceptions, the impact of early life experiences, and the growing importance of mental health in modern society. Today it can be read in its historical context. This book is a re-issue originally published in 1951. The language used is a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this re-publication.

The human mind abhors the absence of explanation, but full understanding is never possible. Human understanding is likely to be incomplete at best and, more often, utterly fallacious. To make matters worse, it is likely to be supported as truth and wisdom by religious and scientific authority, intellectual fashion and social convention. In Words to the Wise, Thomas Szasz offers a compendium of thoughts, observations, and aphorisms that address our understanding of a broad range of subjects, from birth to death. In this book, Szasz tackles a problem intrinsic to the human condition. What problem? In the words of the American humorist Josh Billings: "The trouble with people is not what they don't know but that they know so much that ain't so." Many of Thomas Szasz's books have been devoted to exposing what "ain't so" about mental illness and psychiatry. Here, Szasz applies the same skeptical spirit to the larger problem of people knowing much that "ain't so." About addiction, Szasz observes: "If a person ingests a drug prohibited by legislators and claims that it makes him feel better, that proves he is an addict; if he ingests a drug prescribed by a psychiatrist and claims that it makes him feel better, that proves that mental illness is a biomedical disease." About beauty: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; ugliness is in the personality of the beholden." About libertarians: "Libertarians regard liberty as contingent on the right to property; scientists regard disease as contingent on pathological alteration of the body. All libertarians reject the notion of 'socialist liberty, ' yet many accept the notion of 'mental disease.'" Or about power: "Many of my critics say I am hostile to medicine and physicians. They are wrong. I am hostile only to the power of the medical profession and of physicians." Szasz notes that despite enormous social pressure for a shared perspective on how the world works and how we ought to live, every person'saunderstanding, not only of himself, but of the world about him, is different from every other person's. This volume shows how the quest for truth is a never-ending challenge, and must presuppose an honest acceptance of questions, problems, and uncertainty.

Advances in modern medicine - with the exception of psychiatry - are fantastic. Who would accept the surgical techniques of 1950, today? Which hospital would allow a surgeon fully trained in 1950 to even enter a modern surgical suite? In psychiatry, modern treatment does no better than it did in 1950. Psychiatry has the worst record of any medical specialty. This assessment is based on my observations from 1950 when I began to work in the mental hospitals in Saskatchewan. At that time patients were locked up in awful buildings placed far from centers of population. The treatment used by the Quakers in 1840, which yielded fifty percent discharge recoveries, was forgotten. Admission to mental hospital in 1950 was a life sentence, with no time off for good behaviour. The situation is different today. Patients are no longer locked up, but their brains are imprisoned by powerful, toxic chemicals from which they can not and are not allowed to escape. Orthomolecular treatment, which developed before these toxic drugs were found, has been ignored. Modern psychiatry uses only drugs and ignores the three most important elements of treatment, i.e. shelter, food, and treatment with civility and respect. The evidence is provided in this book. The optimum treatment in 1850 when drugs were not available yielded fifty percent recovery; today it is less than ten percent if the criteria are freedom from symptoms, ability to get along well with family and the community, and paying income tax.

Product description Book by Fine, Reuben From Publishers Weekly Proposing that "psychoanalysis is a theory of happiness ," more philosophy than science, Fine ( The Intimate Hour ) documents and explains the pervasive presence of analytic tenets, ideas and values current in global society. His stance as apologist ("Generally people nowadays approach Freud with a negative transference") is evident in his views on homosexuality, in his opposition to the "remedicalization" of psychiatry and his support of non-medical analysts. Chapters on love distinguish romantic infatuation from "normal" or "mature" love; others attempt to approach changing views of sexuality and job satisfaction, including the move of women into the marketplace, from a historical perspective. While the study is valuable in its documentation of psychoanalysis's growth and development, Fine's overview of today's society seems scattershot, dated, arbitrary and occasionally unreliable, as in his interpretation of Erica Jong's phrase "zipless fuck." Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book by Stekel, Wilhelm