Psychosis And Power

Glass's analysis bridges contemporary psychoanalytic and political theory and centers on case studies as well as small-group interactions at the hospital. Focusing on psychotic patients' own perceptions, he describes the loss of their ability to participate in consensual reality and to sustain the respect for rights and tolerance of differences which make reciprocal relationships possible. Their experience, Glass maintains, vividly illuminates larger political issues and points, in particular, to the psychotic bases of political tyranny. Pursuing omnipotence, closing off dialogue, creating scapegoats, and promoting violence - the tyrant elevates to matters of public policy those patterns of behavior that in an individual would be considered psychotic.

This book offers first-person accounts of the experience of psychosis from the inside and the outside, through the eyes of two doctors, one of whom has experienced psychosis and both of whom have worked for decades in the field of psychiatry. Underpinned by rigorous academic analysis using an evocative duo-ethnographic approach, the book explores the cultural and subcultural influences from childhood onwards – both traumatic and resilience-building – that have shaped their lives. Both authors reflect on strategies they learned early in life for dealing with challenges, each managing to function at a high level while avoiding awareness of their vulnerability. They reflect on the potential dangers of using their expertise and position of power in psychiatry simply to diagnose mental illness and prescribe medication. The differences and similarities in the authors’ stories provide a productive tension highlighting the complexities of this paradigm shift that is happening in psychiatry. Written in the form of two interacting memoirs, this book is of great interest to researchers, clinicians, and practicing psychologists, as well as a general audience with interest in psychosis.

Delusions of electronic persecution have been a preeminent symptom of psychosis for over two hundred years. In The Technical Delusion Jeffrey Sconce traces the history and continuing proliferation of this phenomenon from its origins in Enlightenment anatomy to our era of global interconnectivity. While psychiatrists have typically dismissed such delusions of electronic control as arbitrary or as mere reflections of modern life, Sconce demonstrates a more complex and interdependent history of electronics, power, and insanity. Drawing on a wide array of psychological case studies, literature, court cases, and popular media, Sconce analyzes the material and social processes that have shaped historical delusions of electronic contamination, implantation, telepathy, surveillance, and immersion. From the age of telegraphy to contemporary digitality, the media emerged within such delusions to become the privileged site for imagining the merger of electronic and political power, serving as a paranoid conduit between the body and the body politic. Looking to the future, Sconce argues that this symptom will become increasingly difficult to isolate, especially as remote and often secretive powers work to further integrate bodies, electronics, and information.

The treatment of early psychosis has been bedevilled by an entrenched pessimism, stemming from the asylum era and the Kraepelinian model of schizophrenia. More recently, however, there has been a surge of interest in preventively oriented treatment of patients showing the first signs of psychotic illness, with the realization that these illnesses are frequently highly responsive to early treatment. This is the first text to focus on the potential of early detection of psychosis, and the practicalities of treatment. Based on the pioneering experience and research of a now well-established prevention and intervention centre, and with contributions from international authorities, the book outlines a framework for intervention, reviews the evidence available to guide clinical practice, and describes models of treatment. Incorporating many personal narratives and case histories, it is strong on theory, sensitive on practical issues, and will challenge, inform and guide clinicians.

As this bestseller predicted, Trump has only grown more erratic and dangerous as the pressures on him mount. This new edition includes new essays bringing the book up to date—because this is still not normal. Originally released in fall 2017, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump was a runaway bestseller. Alarmed Americans and international onlookers wanted to know: What is wrong with him? That question still plagues us. The Trump administration has proven as chaotic and destructive as its opponents feared, and the man at the center of it all remains a cipher. Constrained by the APA’s “Goldwater rule,” which inhibits mental health professionals from diagnosing public figures they have not personally examined, many of those qualified to weigh in on the issue have shied away from discussing it at all. The public has thus been left to wonder whether he is mad, bad, or both. The prestigious mental health experts who have contributed to the revised and updated version of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump argue that their moral and civic "duty to warn" supersedes professional neutrality. Whatever affects him, affects the nation: From the trauma people have experienced under the Trump administration to the cult-like characteristics of his followers, he has created unprecedented mental health consequences across our nation and beyond. With eight new essays (about one hundred pages of new material), this edition will cover the dangerous ramifications of Trump's unnatural state. It’s not all in our heads. It’s in his.

A powerful account of how cultural anxieties about race shaped American notions of mental illness The civil rights era is largely remembered as a time of sit-ins, boycotts, and riots. But a very different civil rights history evolved at the Ionia State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Ionia, Michigan. In The Protest Psychosis, psychiatrist and cultural critic Jonathan Metzl tells the shocking story of how schizophrenia became the diagnostic term overwhelmingly applied to African American protesters at Ionia—for political reasons as well as clinical ones. Expertly sifting through a vast array of cultural documents, Metzl shows how associations between schizophrenia and blackness emerged during the tumultuous decades of the 1960s and 1970s—and he provides a cautionary tale of how anxieties about race continue to impact doctor-patient interactions in our seemingly postracial America. This book was published with two different covers. Customers will be shipped the book with one of the two covers.

Estimates indicate that as many as 1 in 4 Americans will experience a mental health problem or will misuse alcohol or drugs in their lifetimes. These disorders are among the most highly stigmatized health conditions in the United States, and they remain barriers to full participation in society in areas as basic as education, housing, and employment. Improving the lives of people with mental health and substance abuse disorders has been a priority in the United States for more than 50 years. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 is considered a major turning point in America's efforts to improve behavioral healthcare. It ushered in an era of optimism and hope and laid the groundwork for the consumer movement and new models of recovery. The consumer movement gave voice to people with mental and substance use disorders and brought their perspectives and experience into national discussions about mental health. However over the same 50-year period, positive change in American public attitudes and beliefs about mental and substance use disorders has lagged behind these advances. Stigma is a complex social phenomenon based on a relationship between an attribute and a stereotype that assigns undesirable labels, qualities, and behaviors to a person with that attribute. Labeled individuals are then socially devalued, which leads to inequality and discrimination. This report contributes to national efforts to understand and change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that can lead to stigma and discrimination. Changing stigma in a lasting way will require coordinated efforts, which are based on the best possible evidence, supported at the national level with multiyear funding, and planned and implemented by an effective coalition of representative stakeholders. Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders: The Evidence for Stigma Change explores stigma and discrimination faced by individuals with mental or substance use disorders and recommends effective strategies for reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek treatment and other supportive services. It offers a set of conclusions and recommendations about successful stigma change strategies and the research needed to inform and evaluate these efforts in the United States.

The use of first-hand service user accounts of mental illness is still limited in the professional literature available. This is, however, beginning to change, with a new ‘recovery’ focus in mental health services meaning that the voices of service users are finally being heard. Recovering from Psychosis: Empirical Evidence and Lived Experience synthesises a narrative approach alongside an evidence-based review of current treatment by including Stephen Williams’ own personal experience as it relates to psychosis, recovery and treatment. A mental health professional himself, the author’s account of his own recovery from severe mental health difficulties, without sustained intervention, challenges the orthodoxy of representation of service users in mental health. Recovering from Psychosis critically explores and reviews the current state of the art of research and knowledge about the nature and treatment of psychosis. Working simultaneously from empirical, lived experience and philosophical perspectives, Stephen Williams: Evaluates political and power related issues in professional understanding, knowledge-creation and treatment of people with psychosis; Introduces the current ‘recovery movement’, unpacking its origins and implications for the future development of ‘recovery oriented services’; Reviews, summarizes and critiques the current state of ‘recovery’ research, looking at the advantages and disadvantages of such an approach, examining how this is influencing the transformation of UK mental health services; Analyses the difficulties in organisational implementation of recovery approaches, summarises the most empirically robust approaches to practice, personal and service delivery measurement; Reviews current ‘models’ of psychosis and how various professional scientific groups explain the experience and nature of psychosis; Uses lived-experience accounts taken from the scientific literature, portraying the nature of such experiences and analysing them in the face of contemporary psychological models. Recovering from Psychosis is an essential comprehensive guide for mental health professionals, psychologists, social workers and carers, who are working with people with severe and enduring mental health difficulties diagnosed as psychosis. It addresses the practical implications of working with such difficult conditions and serves as a hopeful story of recovery for service users.