Shoham presents existentialist and object-relationship personality theory using mythology as a projection of human behavior. Through the myth of Don Juan as well as the personality of Casanova, he highlights the biological parameter of the personality and the thought of Kierkegaard and Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. He concludes by relating the dynamics of personality to the predisposition of crime and madness.

Reading this book may just leave you screaming for Lithium. Taking us viscerally into her mammoth fears, great energy, deep sadness, and often indignant spirit, Carol Coussons de Reyes chronicles her personal journey with bipolar disorder.

While other memoirs have given us an intellectual understanding of mental illness, Carol guides us, without mercy, through her life as it hits its strongest intensities. The spiral begins as we see through the eyes and heart of a woman who fears she is being poisoned and gassed, tailed by the FBI, watched by the Army, and associated with a CIA assassin.

Although Carol seeks treatment, and is involuntarily hospitalized several times, she shines a light on the inhumane treatment she receives and the community's approach to mental illness. In doing so, she helps begin to erase the stigmas and discrimination in today's society and create hope.

By sharing her story, Carol allows us to see that her recovery was by no means linear, but was achieved on her own terms. "Falling into Peaces" is ultimately about triumph as Carol not only finds her own sense of peace but joins with national leaders that create new and innovative roads to wellness.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a potentially severely debilitating psychiatric diagnosis that may affect up to 2% of the general population. Hallmarks of BPD include impulsivity, emotional instability, and poor self-image, and those with BPD have increased risk for self-harm and suicide. Systems Training for Emotional Predictability and Problem Solving (STEPPS) brings together research findings and information on implementation and best practices for a group treatment program for outpatients with BPD. A five-month long program easily learned and delivered by therapists from a wide range of theoretical orientations, STEPPS combines cognitive behavioral therapy, emotion management and behavioral skills training, and psychoeducation with a systems component that involves professional care providers, family, friends, and significant others of persons with BPD. The book provides a detailed description of the program, reviews the body of evidence supporting its use and implementation, and describes its dissemination worldwide and in different settings. Empirical data show that STEPPS is effective and produces clinically important improvement in mood and behavior, while reducing health care utilization. Unique among programs for BPD, STEPPS has been exhaustively studied in correctional systems (both prisons and community corrections), where it is shown to be as effective as in community settings. This volume will be a valuable guide to those in psychiatry, psychology, social work, nursing, and the counseling professions who treat people with BPD.

Sacred Spark is the compelling true story of a child affected by mercury-poisoning and his minister-mother s decade-long battle to restore the light in his eyes. It is also the inspiring story of Reverend Sykes' work with the United Methodist Church to pass the first global resolution advocating the elimination of mercury from medicine, a nascent social justice movement on par with historical faith-based campaigns against child labor and slavery. With pragmatism and compassion, Sacred Spark calls for putting the well-being of children first. Through Sacred Spark s unflinchingly honest, first-person account, parents and physicians demanding safer vaccines will find clarity to support their informed choices as well as inspiration and guidance to become advocates for children. Woven seamlessly into the book s engrossing narrative are Rev. Sykes victories in appropriate and landmark biomedical treatments for her son, the success of empowered parents to enact state bans on mercury and to approach Attorney Generals across the country, attempts to find precious allies against a corrupt and protected industry, and her family s lawsuit defeat against a pharmaceutical company. As a Princeton Theological Seminary graduate and minister of 19 years, Rev. Sykes inspires the reader to go beyond compromised scientific studies and profit-driven political debates, and examine the mercury/autism issue through the first-hand experience of a mother and the faith and conviction of a minister. Sacred Spark ultimately teaches us that it is ordinary people who ignite the fire of reform.

What would you do if your child suffered with something so severe it affected every aspect of his life?
Susie Dunham, Midwestern mom and former nurse, never suspected her son Michael was anything but a typical college student with big dreams until he developed schizophrenia shortly after his 21st birthday. The Dunham family quickly becomes immersed in the nightmare world of mental illness in America: psychiatric wards, a seemingly indifferent nursing staff, and the trial-and-error world of psychotropic meds. Michael's ultimate recovery and remission comes with plenty of traumatic incidents involving both ignorance and stigma, but his courage and quest for dignity will inspire all readers.
"Susie Dunham's heroic, heart-rending story is a beacon of light in the darkness of insanity. It shows that recovery is hard-won but possible for people who develop schizophrenia, despite a media that sensationalizes them, a society that shuns them, and a dysfunctional mental healthcare system that fails them miserably."
--Patrick Tracey, author of "Stalking Irish Madness: Searching for the Roots of My Family's Schizophrenia"
"Every person in a leadership position needs to take the time to read this moving story of triumph over adversity."
--State Representative John Adams, Ohio House Minority Whip
"The fact that Michael bravely fought this disease, picked up the pieces and moved beyond it, should give others hope that one day schizophrenia will be seen as a treatable disease with no stigma attached."
--Sharon Goldberg, News & Reviews Editor,"NYC Voices" A Journal for Mental Health Advocacy
""Beyond Schizophrenia: Michael's Journey" is a book that I couldn't put down. The story of Michael's parents Susie and Mark who support their son both in good times and bad really touched me. I really like the way the symptoms of schizophrenia are explained clearly."
--Bill MacPhee, Founder/CEO of SZ Magazine
Also available in trade paperback and eBook editions
Learn more at www.SusieDunham.org
From the Reflections of America Series at Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com
PSY022050 Psychology: Psychopathology - Schizophrenia
BIO026000 Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs
MED105000 Medical / Psychiatry / General

As indicated by its title A History of Great Ideas in Abnormal Psychology, this book is not just concerned with the chronology of events or with biographical details of great psychiatrists and psychopathologists. It has as its main interest, a study of the ideas underlying theories about mental illness and mental health in the Western world. These are studied according to their historical development from ancient times to the twentieth century. The book discusses the history of ideas about the nature of mental illness, its causation, its treatment and also social attitudes towards mental illness. The conceptions of mental illness are discussed in the context of philosophical ideas about the human mind and the medical theories prevailing in different periods of history. Certain perennial controversies are presented such as those between the psychological and organic approaches to the treatment of mental illness, and those between the focus on disease entities (nosology) versus the focus on individual personalities. The beliefs of primitive societies are discussed, and the development of early scientific ideas about mental illness in Greek and Roman times. The study continues through the medieval age to the Renaissance. More emphasis is then placed on the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, the enlightenment of the eighteenth, and the emergence of modern psychological and psychiatric ideas concerning psychopathology in the twentieth century.

Originally published in 1901. Author: Havelock Ellis Language: English Keywords: Psychology Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Emotional Transformation Therapy: An Interactive Ecological Psychotherapy describes an entirely original approach to psychotherapy that drastically accelerates therapeutic outcomes in terms of speed and long-term effects. It includes an attachment-based interpersonal approach that increases the impact of the therapist-client bond and is amplified by the precise use of the client's visual ecology. This synthesis is called Emotional Transformation Therapy (R) (ETT (R)). Steven R. Vazquez, PhD, discusses four techniques that therapeutically harness the client's visual ecology. When the client is asked to view a maximally saturated spectral chart of colors, visual feedback provides immediate diagnostic information that helps the therapist to regulate emotional intensity or loss of awareness of emotions. A second technique offers an original form of directed eye movement that facilitates relief of emotional distress within minutes. A third technique uses peripheral eye stimulation to rapidly reduce extreme emotional or physical pain within seconds as well as to access previously unconscious thoughts, emotions, or memories related to the issue or symptom. The fourth technique uses the emission of precise wavelengths (colors) of light into the client's eyes during verbal processing that dramatically amplifies the effect of talk therapy and changes the brain in profound ways. Emotional Transformation Therapy uses theory, research, and case studies to show how this method can be applied to depression, anxiety disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, and complex trauma. Pre and post brain scans have shown that ETT (R) substantially changes the human brain. This method possesses the potential to revolutionize psychotherapy as we know it.