Product Description: A bold call for the “insane” to reclaim their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural transformation • Explains how many of those diagnosed as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other forms of “madness” are not ill but experiencing a spiritual awakening • Explores the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement • Reveals how those seen as “mad” must embrace their spiritual gifts to help the coming global spiritual transition Many of the great prophets of the past experienced madness--a breakdown followed by a breakthrough, spiritual death followed by rebirth...read more

In the 1960s and 1970s, the radical and visionary ideas of R. D. Laing revolutionized thinking about psychiatric practice and the meaning of madness. His work, from The Divided Self to Knots, and his therapeutic community at Kingsley Hall, made him a household name. But after little more than a decade he faded from prominence as quickly as he had attained it. R.D.Laing and the Paths of Anti-Psychiatry re-examines Laing's work in the context of the anti-psychiatry movement. Concentrating on his most productive decade, the author provides a reasoned critique of Laing's theoretical writings, investigates the influences on his thinking such as phenomenology, existentialism and American family interaction research, and considers the experimental Kingsley Hall therapeutic community in comparison with anti-psychiatry experiments in Germany and Italy. The book provides a much needed reassessment and re-evaluation of Laing's work and its significance for psychotherapy and psychiatry today.

Product Description: Since he published The Myth of Mental Illness in 1961, radical psychiatrist and social critic Thomas Szasz has been the scourge of the psychiatric establishment, eloquently arguing against commitment of the mentally ill, the war on drugs, the insanity defense in criminal trials, Ritalin, homophobia, and other conventional dogmas...read more

Product Description: He was the rising star of psychoanalysis, an intimate associate of Anna Freud and Kurt Eissler, a member of the Freudian “inner circle” with unrestricted access to the Freud Archives. And then Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson threw it all away because he dared to break the psychoanalytic community’s deepest taboo: he told the truth in public...read more

Thomas Szasz is renowned for his critical explora- tion of the literal language of psychiatry and his rejection of officially sanctioned definitions of mental illness. His work has initiated a continuing debate in the psychiatric community whose essence is often misunderstood. Szasz's critique of the established view of mental illness is rooted in an insistent distinction between disease and behavior. In his view, psychiatrists have misapplied the vocabulary of disease as metaphorical figures to denote a range of deviant behaviors from the merely eccentric to the criminal. In A Lexicon of Lunacy, Szasz extends his analysis of psychiatric language to show how its misuse has resulted in a medicalized view of life that denies the reality of free will and responsibility. Szasz documents the extraordinary extent to which modern diagnosis of mental illness is subject to shifting social attitudes and values. He shows how economic, personal, legal, and political factors have come to play an increasingly powerful role in the diagnostic process, with consequences of blurring the distinction between cultural and scientific standards. Broadened definitions of mental illness have had a corrosive effect on the criminal justice system in undercutting traditional conceptions of criminal behavior and have encouraged state-sanctioned coercive interventions that bestow special privileges (and impose special hardships) on persons diagnosed as mentally ill. Lucidly written and powerfully argued, and now available in paperback, this provocative and challenging volume will be of interest to psychologists, criminologists, and sociologists. "No one attacks loose-thinking and folly with half the precision and zest of Thomas Szasz. Another good book in an impressive canon."--John Leo, U.S. News & World Report 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, D.C. He is the author of over two dozen books in fifteen languages, including The Myth of Mental Illness, Pharmacracy: Medicine and Politics in America, and most recently Liberation by Oppression, also published by Transaction.

Product Description: In recent years the mental health industry has been attacked for the invalidity of its illnesses, the unreliability of its diagnoses, the dangers of its treatments, and its corruption by drug companies. Commonsense Rebellion integrates those critiques and goes further...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: "The Loony-Bin Trip" is the powerful, staggeringly personal story of Kate Millett's struggle to regain control of her life after falling under an ascription of manic depression. Compulsively readable, Millett's journey into 'that other region' traverses a fearful terrain of self-doubt, futility, and alienation...read more

Product Description: One of the great rebels of psychiatry, R. D. Laing challenged prevailing models of madness and the nature and limits of psychiatric authority. In this brief and lucid book, Laing's widely praised biographer distills the essence of Laing's vision, which was religious and philosophical as well as psychological...read more

Two authors attest that Freudian-based psychotherapy and therapeutic dependence on the subconscious mind are totally ineffective, and embrace instead a rigorous bio-medical approach to mental health. (view table of contents)

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Product Description: 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...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The history of psychotherapy is marked by incompetence, inhumane and immoral treatment, and a total misunderstanding of human beings. Sadly enough, this lack of understanding also dominates mental health treatment today. Dr. Baker addresses the problem of the lack of scientific training and outlook among the people in the mental health field, and examines what is needed if the public is to be better served by mental health professions...read more

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Product Description: This is a collection of seven true stories of individuals insulted and injured by the mental health system, individuals who then fought back, broke free, and rebuilt their lives. Madness, Heresy, and the Rumor of Angels is a work in the tradition of Thomas Szasz, R...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The Philadelphia Association, the therapeutic organization founded by R. D. Laing, is unique in illuminating its psychoanalytic perspective by a philosophical critique of psychoanalytic concepts themselves. It promotes a way of living and relating which enables the therapist to be as much 'witness' to the struggles of others as analyst...read more

The author criticizes the practice of psychotherapy, contending that it is by nature abusive, and offering a history of the practice, an examination of the work of Freud and Jung, and a discussion of physical abuse by therapists

This study of the 'radicalization' of psychiatry analyzes the writings of Laing, Foucault, Szasz, and Goffman, constructs a model for understanding mental illness, and emphasizes collective responsibility for the care of the mentally ill