An evaluation of psychiatric thought and practice from prehistoric times to the present.

The author believes that what is nowadays accepted as mental illness is whatever psychiatrists say it is - and that psychiatry has, with increasing zeal, defined more and more kinds of behavior as mental illness. What is termed mental illness is in fact behavior disapproved of by the speaker.

Genetics promises to provide one of the most powerful approaches to understanding the functional pathology of the human brain. This book presents a critical review of the evidence for a genetic contribution to common psychiatric conditions and the rarer single-gene disorders that may have psychiatric presentations The first section of the book introduces the reader to molecular biology and the techniques of molecular genetics. The coverage then moves on to consider the genetics of normal and abnormal development, followed by a look at the genetics of abnormal behaviour in adults. This section includes, amongst others, consideration of personality disorders, schizophrenia and the dementias. The final section considers the applications of the work and covers issues such as counselling and ethics, closing with a look to the future. The editors are internationally renowned figures in this field and they have invited a team of equally eminent chapter authors. This will be essential reading for psychiatrists and geneticists and will be essential reading for psychiatrists and geneticists and will be of interest to neurologists, psychologists and neuroscientists.

This volume applies attachment theory and methods to extend our understanding and prediction of psychopathology. Studies of such populations as divorced mothers, chronically ill infants, Romanian adoptees, children of mothers with anxiety disorders, and boys with gender identity disorder reveal a variety of clinical implications and highlight issues for attachment theory. Chapters utilize research into a recently discovered form of attachment, the disorganized pattern, as well as new technologies for classifying attachment security beyond infancy. This book should be of interest to practioners, researchers, and students of clinical and developmental psychology, psychiatry, pediatrics, and social work, as well as other professionals concerned with human development.

In this seminal work, Dr. Szasz examines the similarities between the inquisition and institutional psychiatry. His purpose is to show “that the belief in mental illness and the social actions to which it leads have the same moral implications and political consequences as had the belief in witchcraft and the social actions to which it led.”

"This is a book by a leading exponent of work with mentally disordered offenders charting key events in a fifty year career, which will be of particular interest to criminal psychologists, psychiatrists, probation officers, social workers, judges, magistrates, criminologists, and all students of crime and punishment." "From a relatively modest background, Herschel Prins rose to become a leading authority on forensic work with offenders suffering from mental disorder. In this frank and heartfelt account, he traces his journey from 'main grade' probation officer, Home Office civil servant, trainer and inspector to top level positions within academic institutions (notably at Leicester University and Loughborough University), with the Parole Board, key nationwide committees, inquiries and beyond." "His 'reflections' on a life geared to enhancing knowledge and understanding in this sphere contain unique insights for practitioners and general readers alike - and words of wisdom for the --

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.

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.

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

The idea of "insanity" pervades every aspect of our daily lives. Here, Szasz contends that the term actually functions as a euphemism for problems in living, as an excuse for crime and misbehaviour, as a stigma for invalidating adversaries - and, generally, as a metaphor and legal fiction.