Psychiatry and psychology have constructed a mental health system that does no justice to the problems it claims to understand and creates multiple problems for its users. Yet the myth of biologically-based mental illness defines our present. This book rethinks madness and distress reclaiming them as human, not medical, experiences.

Dr. Wes Crenshaw offers thirteen principles for successful living with ADD and ADHD drawn from twenty-two years of experience and 23,000 hours of clinical discussions with hundreds of interesting clients. Written in an entertaining, conversational style for readers aged fifteen to thirty, Dr. Wes pulls no punches in confronting the cognitive, social, emotional, and academic pitfalls people with ADD face every day. He also helps families, friends, and romantic partners understand a diagnosis of ADD not as something to fear or an excuse, but as a first step on the path to a better tomorrow. His principles include accepting here and now, living intentionally, making mindful decisions, recognizing and taking the right path and not just the easy one, wanting rather than wishing, finding and following life's instructions, managing crises, taking responsibility, attaining character through radical honesty, and creating sustainable happiness through organized thinking and living. Finally, Dr. Wes guides you and your loved ones in how to better manage relationships, seek a good diagnosis, utilize therapy, and become your own expert on medication management. * Have you been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD or do you suspect you should be? Do you really want to start solving your many riddles and living a more successful and productive life? This book is for you. * Does your partner, child, roommate, or friend have ADD? Do you wonder what's going on in his or her head, and you really want to understand the secret code so you can better love him or her? This book is for you. * Are you a little scattered or organizationally challenged? Do you struggle with details, follow-through, or in converting ideas into results? Do your people see you as fun and energetic, but uncommitted and difficult to pin down. Maybe you're an "ADD-leaner." This book is for you.

The central thesis of Schizotypy: Implications for Illness and Health is both challenging and controversial: that the features of psychotic disorders actually lie on a continuum with, and form part of, normal behaviour and experience. The dispositional or 'schizotypal' traits associated with psychotic disorders certainly predispose an individual to mental illness, but they may also lead to positive outcomes such as enhanced creativity or spiritual experience. Discussion of each aspect of this theme is supported by extensive experimental and clinical evidence, questioning the received medical wisdom which treats psychotic illness in the narrow context of neurological disease. The result is an authoritative and provocative overview of an important topic in psychological research and clinical practice.

When Downeast "local" Annette Fiorno is found at the bottom of a ravine, "outsider" and relapsed drug addict Jimmy Sedgwick is accused of murder. Unassuming Maine lawyer Rob Hanston and big shot attorney Shawn Marks form an unlikely legal team as they attempt to discredit the overwhelming evidence. Addiction on Trial, the first in a series of Shawn Marks Thrillers, revolves around the murder cases of Attorney Marks, an egotistical yet likable high-powered Boston attorney who can juggle an array of female companions without taking his eye off the legal challenges of his work. Addiction on Trial sends a powerful message of societal discrimination toward drug addicts and explores common misperceptions about what drug addiction really is - a chronic illness requiring a similar treatment approach as other chronic diseases. Medical and behavioral aspects of addiction are woven into the intrigue of this thriller, which culminates in a riveting murder trial.

This book discusses what Jacques Lacan's oeuvre contributes to our understanding of psychosis. Presenting a close reading of original texts, Stijn Vanheule proposes that Lacan's work on psychosis can best be framed in terms of four broad periods.

Description

This was Chipmunka Publishing's second book release, and one of the most important books on mental illness ever written. A book that in the words of the author, "started out a suicide note and ended up a celebration of life." Dolly's outstanding memoir is the gripping tale of a woman's fight to come to terms with abuse, family pressures, prejudice and severe mental ill health. Sen describes the horrible reality of being diagnosed with both manic depression and schizophrenia and the prejudice she faced. Add to this a series of horrific experiences in her life, and it is remarkable how she has the strength to come through such events, writing with such vigour, optimism and warmness.

About the Author

Born in 1970, she had her first psychotic experience aged 14 which lead her to leave school. After years of mental illness, probably bought on by an abusive childhood, Dolly decided she should write about her experiences. She was inspired to write her own story after reading Jason Pegler's autobiography 'A Can of Madness'. She has since written five books, become a successful performance poet who has toured throughout Europe and has set up two charities.

The constant threat of terror leads to the destabilization of the political, economic, and social situation in the state. Lack of confidence in personal safety contributes to the growth of anxiety, fears, and mental stress, which negatively affects psychological health, leading to the development of various psychosomatic disorders among the population. Global Perspectives on the Psychology of Terrorism discusses the psychological aspects of terrorism, including the determination of the main types of terrorism and the psychological characteristics of terrorists and terrorist groups. It further speaks on the negative impact of terrorism on the mass consciousness, as well as the ways to deal with stress in people exposed to the impact of terrorist attacks, features of human behavior in extreme situations, and methods of psychological support in times of crisis. Covering topics such as state terrorism, international security, and cyberterrorism, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for government officials, sociologists, representatives of mass media, non-governmental organizations, politicians, psychologists, students and faculty of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

The book examines how coevolved intraspecific aggression and appeasement gestures can give rise to complex social, cultural, and psychopathological phenomena. It argues that the individual's need regulate narcissistic supplies and maintain feelings of safety is the overriding determinant of human conduct and thought in mental health and illness.

Methamphetamine: the quintessential American drug. American housewives, heads of state, businessmen and poets alike have acquired a taste for the yellow, crystalline powder. Everyone from Hitler to President Kennedy to Elvis to Jack Kerouac indulged in one of its many forms, and its presence has been an invisible hand shaping events, preparing the ground for the strangest drug epidemic the world has ever seen. Today methamphetamine is everywhere, and there seems to be no way of stemming its growth.

It is the backbone of Ritalin and the "club drugs" Ecstasy, Eve and Cat. According to the DEA statistics, approximately four percent of all Americans have used clandestinely manufactured methamphetamine. In the 1960s and 1970s millions of mainstream Americans used and abused prescription amphetamines; today, anyone with a stovetop, a beaker, and a little know-how can make its derivative, methamphetamine, with chemicals purchased at the hardware store and pharmacy down the street.

"American Meth" is the unprecedented story of a molecule in all of its incarnations, and the deep but little-known impact it has had on American life over the course of the last century. Told from the viewpoint of author Sterling Braswell, whose life has been touched by the drug, "American Meth" is a deeply personal drama that illuminates the epidemic we live with today.

In this work, the author of The Defiant Child tackles the thinking patterns and beliefs that almost always underlie depression in children and teenagers. He emphasizes how parents can talk to their children about what they are thinking and feeling. The book explores how children develop a negative set of beliefs about themselves and helps parents learn how to modify their children's self-perception. Chapters include discussion of: what to do when a child says I want to die; clinical stories about children who believe they are no good; children who cannot cope with extraordinary stress and develop an inner punitive voice; hints for parents of well-adapted children to avoid falling prey to low self-esteem bullies; and the professional treatment options, from counselling to medications.

The Art of Frenzy presents a masterful analysis of public madness from the Renaissance to the Industrial Age. Frenzy--the most flagrant and political form of madness--is the madness of warrior-heroes, kings, scolds, and the possessed. Its representation incorporates a range of traditional characters and figures, from Hercules and Orlando to Medea and Britannia. Understood as abusive power and belligerence out of control, and described in terms drawn equally from definitions of tyranny and liberty, frenzy has always been articulated with a significant degree of political meaning. Integrating art history with cultural studies, political history, and the history of medicine, Jane Kromm draws on a wide range of mediums and contexts--from asylum sculpture to political broadsheets, medical texts, the imagery of revolution, caricature and medical illustrations--to clarify the importance of this interpretative pattern.

In this controversial study, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) applies the theories and evidence of his psychoanalytic investigations to the study of aboriginal peoples and, by extension, to the earliest cultural stages of the human race before the rise of large-scale civilisations. Freud points out the striking parallels between the cultural practices of native tribal groups and the behaviour patterns of neurotics. Beginning with a discussion of the incest taboo, he compares some of the elaborate taboo restrictions seen in these cultures to the scrupulous rituals of compulsion neurotics, who in a similar fashion are wrestling with the ambivalent emotions aroused by the incest taboo. He suggests that many of the rituals of culture are developed as psychological reactions to taboos, which prohibit the acting out of an infantile impulse that would be socially destructive. Freud concludes by invoking his famous Oedipal complex as the key to the development of culture.;The repressed psychological urge to kill the father as a rival for the mother's affections is the underlying motive for the symbols and ceremonies of religion with its rituals of atonement and its notions of angry gods, original sin, and human guilt. Although Freud's theories are controversial today, this masterful synthesis and its undeniable influence on later scholars of religion, anthropology, and psychology make it a seminal work.

"This book is informative and interesting and would be useful both in academic and professional settings."--"Feminism & Psychology"

A special kind of horror is reserved for mothers who kill their children. Cases such as those of Susan Smith, who drowned her two young sons by driving her car into a lake, and Melissa Drexler, who disposed of her newborn baby in a restroom at her prom, become media sensations. Unfortunately, in addition to these high-profile cases, hundreds of mothers kill their children in the United States each year. The question most often asked is, why? What would drive a mother to kill her own child?

Those who work with such cases, whether in clinical psychology, social services, law enforcement or academia, often lack basic understandings about the types of circumstances and patterns which might lead to these tragic deaths, and the social constructions of motherhood which may affect women's actions. These mothers oftentimes defy the myths and media exploitation of them as evil, insane, or lacking moral principles, and they are not a homogenous group. In obvious ways, intervention strategies should differ for a teenager who denies her pregnancy and then kills her newborn and a mother who kills her two toddlers out of mental illness or to further a relationship. A typology is needed to help us to understand the different cases that commonly occur and the patterns they follow in order to make possible more effective prevention plans.

Mothers Who Kill Their Children draws on extensive research to identify clear patterns among the cases of women who kill their children, shedding light on why some women commit these acts. The characteristics the authorsestablish will be helpful in creating more meaningful policies, more targeted intervention strategies, and more knowledgeable evaluations of these cases when they arise.

This volume explores service users' lived experiences of mental health recovery within a day centre setting where creative activity and social support were key aspects of the service. These two facets, creative activity and social support are established as conducive to mental health, particularly when in partnership with one another and when there is a venue in which to gather on a regular and frequent basis. McDonnell argues that the uplifting effects of creative activities such as art, music, and creative reading and writing, alongside the communality incorporated into the general ethos and social setting of many of the projects cited, are a positive force for change and that resource allocation and integrated care models should reflect this new paradigm.