Being sane has long been defined simply as that bland and nebulous state of not being mentally ill. While writings on madness fill entire libraries, until now no one has thought to engage exclusively with the idea of sanity.

In a society governed by indulgence and excess, madness is the state of mind we identify with most keenly. Though ultimately destructive, it is often credited as the wellspring of genius, individuality, and self-expression. Sanity, on the other hand, confounds us. One of the world's most respected psychoanalysts and original thinkers, Adam Phillips redresses this historical imbalance. He strips our lives back to essentials, focusing on how we--as human beings, parents, lovers, as people to whom work matters--can make space for a sane and well-balanced attitude to living. In a world saturated by tales of dysfunction and suffering, he offers a way forward that is as down-to-earth and realistic as it is uplifting and hopeful.

A Comprehensive, Holistic Guide to the Conventional Medical and Self-Care Treatments for Anxiety Disorders

In a world that values excess, the pressure to succeed never ends. As a result of our fast-paced and high-stakes society, anxiety can take over our lives.

For approximately 20 million American adults a year, anxiety symptoms such as dizziness, stammering, heart palpitations, trembling, and shaking can be extremely debilitating. Unlike other books on anxiety, this book offers a holistic program that includes not only conventional psychiatric and psychological treatments, but also provides nutrition, fitness, environmental, herbal, stress reduction/healing, and relationship self-care approaches.

"Living Well with Anxiety" contains helpful advice for a wide range of anxiety disorders: social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and various phobias. With a comprehensive resource section that contains relevant websites and e-mail addresses, audiocassettes and CDs for relaxation, and descriptions of related books, this book provides vital help for anyone experiencing anxiety.

EVENING STANDARD'S 'BEST FICTION BOOKS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2022' What do you do, when you find the perfect family... ...and it's not yours? 'Rare and delightful . . . A beautifully crafted novel about female relationships. I couldn't put this book down' Marie Claire The only thing Abi ever wanted was a proper family. So when she falls pregnant by an Australian exchange student in London, she cannot pack up her old life in Croydon fast enough, to start all over in Sydney and make her own family. It is not until she arrives, with three-week-old Jude in tow, that Abi realises Stu is not quite ready to be a father after all. And he is the only person she knows in this hot, dazzling, confusing city, where the job of making friends is turning out to be harder than she thought. That is, until she meets Phyllida, her wealthy, charming, imperious older neighbour, and they become almost like mother and daughter. If only Abi had not told Phil that teeny tiny small lie, the very first day they met...

Give your mind the one thing it needs this winter with the book everyone has been talking about, from clinical psychologist and TikTok sensation Dr Julie Smith THE NO. 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Sound wisdom, easy to gulp down. I'm sure this book is already helping lots of people. Great work, Dr Julie' MATT HAIG, bestselling author of REASONS TO STAY ALIVE 'A toolkit of deceptively simple strategies for life's troubles. Everyone could benefit from the wisdom of Dr Smith' i 'BEST NON-FICTION BOOKS OF 2022' 'Brilliant. Bite-size. Easy to understand. Easy to flick through. It's like a reference to how you feel' Phillip Schofield on ITV's THIS MORNING 'Julie Smith is the psychology teacher you wish you'd had at school' EVENING STANDARD 'This book is a goldmine. I truly treat it like a handbook now' STYLIST 'It's real, it's authentic . . . Very practical and very, very helpful' LORRAINE KELLY AS FEATURED IN THE OBSERVER, STYLIST, EVENING STANDARD, WOMEN'S HEALTH, MARIE CLAIRE AND GRAZIA ________ Drawing on years of experience as a clinical psychologist, online sensation Dr Julie Smith shares all the skills you need to get through life's ups and downs. Filled with secrets from a therapist's toolkit, this is a must-have handbook for optimising your mental health. Dr Julie's simple but expert advice and powerful coping techniques will help you stay resilient no matter what life throws your way. Written in short, bite-sized entries, you can turn straight to the section you need depending on the challenge you're facing - and immediately find the appropriate tools to help with . . . - Managing anxiety - Dealing with criticism - Battling low mood - Building self-confidence - Finding motivation - Learning to forgive yourself This book tackles the everyday issues that affect us all and offers easy, practical solutions that might just change your life. ________ 'Sound, therapeutic wisdom that is easy to gulp down. Full of principles and advice that work and comfort whether you are in a very bad situation or an everyday worrying one. I'm sure this book is already helping lots of people. Great work, Dr Julie' MATT HAIG, bestselling author of REASONS TO STAY ALIVE 'I'm blown away by her ability to communicate difficult ideas with ease, simplicity and practicality. Amazing. Go and buy it now!' Jay Shetty 'Relatable, real and easy to digest . . . As if your wise best friend is chatting to you. An essential mental-health bible for adults and teenagers' YOU Magazine 'If you want to feel like you have a therapist sitting across from you, empowering you with how to be your best self, this book is for you!' Nicole LePera, New York Times bestselling author of How to Do the Work 'Smart, insightful, and warm. Dr Julie is both the expert and wise friend we all need' Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and co-host of the 'Dear Therapists' podcast

Despite the fact that more than 80 per cent of mental health care users make use of African indigenous practitioners, previous texts on mental health care in Africa have focused predominantly on sharpening Western-based competence, while paying scant attention to local African practices. A more holistic view is needed to reconnect mental health practitioners with the African community where value systems are rooted and transmitted, and thus allow them to provide better care. Mental health care in Africa is an evidence-based practice and research book focusing equally on Western and African indigenous mental health care practices so that the best can be taken from both. Mental health care in Africa starts to exert the African epistemology and ways of practice, without undermining the contribution of Western health care. Including African indigenous knowledge systems (AIKS) allows for broader dialogue and encourages original debate on concepts such as self-determination, informed consent, appropriate and relevant assessment, and care in the mental health arena. Contents include the following: Review of Western psychoeducation and findings in the African indigenous context; Planning and conducting therapeutic groups; Therapeutic interaction in HIV and AIDS care: an African approach; Management of aggressive and violent mental health care users; Sensory stimulation in mental health care users with dementia; Medicinal management; Substance rehabilitation and primary mental health care. Mental health care in Africa is aimed at mental health care practitioners and undergraduate students at universities and nursing colleges.

In the tradition of My Stroke of Insight and Brain on Fire, this powerful memoir recounts Barbara Lipska's deadly brain cancer and explains its unforgettable lessons about the brain and mind. Neuroscientist Lipska was diagnosed early in 2015 with metastatic melanoma in her brain's frontal lobe. As the cancer progressed and was treated, she experienced behavioral and cognitive symptoms connected to a range of mental disorders, including dementia and her professional specialty, schizophrenia. Lipska's family and associates were alarmed by the changes in her behavior, which she failed to acknowledge herself. Gradually, after a course of immunotherapy, Lipska returned to normal functioning, amazingly recalled her experience, and through her knowledge of neuroscience identified the ways in which her brain changed during treatment. Lipska admits her condition was unusual; after recovery she was able to return to her research and resume her athletic training and compete in a triathalon. Most patients with similar brain cancers rarely survive to describe their ordeal. Lipska's memoir, coauthored with journalist Elaine McArdle, shows that strength and courage but also an encouraging support network are vital to recovery.

Take control of your anxiety--and start living your life Feel like your life is spinning out of control? Not sure how to handle what seems like constant change and chaos? You're not alone--the world has taken some pretty crazy turns recently--but if you suffer from an anxiety disorder, you're likely suffering far more than you need to. Anxiety is our natural reaction to unfamiliar, stressful, and dangerous situations, but for some of us this reaction can become all-consuming and ultimately debilitating. Anxiety For Dummies has the antidote to this, showing you how to manage feelings of uneasiness, distress, and dread--and take back control of your life. In a straightforward and friendly style, clinical psychologists Charles H. Elliot and Laura L. Smith show you how to pinpoint your triggers, use proven techniques and therapies, improve health and eating habits, and make other practical changes to your lifestyle that will have you feeling better fast. Understand what makes you anxious and learn to let go Change your thinking to "right-size" your worry Evaluate self-help as an adjunct to professional therapy Explore healthy lifestyles and medication options Including updates to the clinical literature and discussions of the impacts of world events--such as COVID-19--this book has everything you need to manage your worries and put you, not them, in charge of your life.

When little things have big impacts. This book is for anyone who feels that they're sleepwalking through life, looking for answers to challenging emotions and the practical tools to begin living the life they want. 'How are you really feeling? A bit blah, meh or simply 'I don't actually know'. If this is your honest, knot-in-the-throat response, take a moment - breathe - and let me reassure you that it's not you, it's what's happened to you over the years. You can't quite put your finger on it, but somehow you just don't feel like you're thriving or truly participating in your own life. This is the result of a build-up of life's scrapes, papercuts and bruises that have left you feeling simply 'not ok'. Emotional illiteracy, microaggressions, challenging familial relationships, toxic positivity and gaslighting are some examples of what I call 'Tiny T' trauma - the impact of which often leads to problems such as high-functioning anxiety, languishing, perfectionism, comfort eating and sleep disturbance, to name but a few. We have been fooled into believing that 'Tiny T' trauma doesn't matter. There always seem to be huge, intractable problems in the world, so we tend to overlook those small, everyday injuries that drill down to your core. This leaves us with an undercurrent of constant melancholy and niggling pinpricks of anxiety, all wrapped up in the film of other people's Insta-perfect lives. But life doesn't have to be experienced in this suffocating way; we owe it to ourselves to develop Awareness, Acceptance, and take Action on our Tiny T trauma, no matter how 'small', and to start living every day as we deserve.'

'A moving portrait of a mother's love for her son ... fiercely intelligent, humane and necessary' NATHAN FILER, author of THE SHOCK OF THE FALL 'At its heart a story about love ... an astonishing new voice' ALI MILLAR, author of THE LAST DAYS 'I'm scared the bad people will hear me talking to you.' I watch him take his notebook and a marker pen from his bag. As he zips the compartment back up I see the tip of our large, serrated kitchen knife, the one that went missing last night. Zach was nineteen when Tanya discovered him rerouting the wires of their landline, sure that the phone was bugged, that his friends were Mafia, that the helicopters swirling above were deployed by spies, that he couldn't trust anyone - her included. That moment upturned and unmoored everything. It would strand them both in a profound and terrifying isolation the way that perhaps only a psychotic break - or loving someone who is experiencing one - can. Zig-Zag Boy is a journey along the tough frontiers of love and madness. As Tanya fights for answers and understanding - coming up against broken healthcare systems in the UK and the US - she is forced to question whether there were warning signs she missed, whether Zach will be able to have a normal life, and what 'normal' really means.

The last time Clancy Martin tried to kill himself was in his basement with a dog leash. He didn’t write a note. How Not to Kill Yourself is an affirmation of life by someone who has tried to end it multiple times. It’s about standing in your bathroom every morning, gearing yourself up to die. It’s about choosing to go on living anyway. In an unflinching account of his darkest moments, Clancy Martin makes the case against suicide, drawing on the work of philosophers from Seneca to Jean Améry. Through critical inquiry and practical steps, we might yet answer our existential despair more freely – and with a little more creativity.

We all share identical properties that mark us out as human beings. Even so, every person is unique: we are not clones. It's the same with depression - or perhaps more properly the depressions (plural) - because they manifest in so many different ways and under different circumstances yet in essence remain the same. This is a simple enough observation, yet there appears to be little understanding of the condition - or conditions - among the general public, who tend to lump together all states of 'feeling miserable' into something to be snapped out of, a disease category to be treated medically, or a feebleness of personality to be disapproved of and dismissed. In this new title from Wyn Bramley, many different views on causation and treatment are explored. The emphasis is on real people's experiences from all aspects of the depressions - sufferers, helpers, family and friends - not a self-help work but an all-encompassing aid to understanding this common condition.

Here, for the first time, is a layperson's explanation of polyvagal theory, an approach to mental health and well-being that has taken the clinical world by storm. A polyvagal approach to life is based on the knowledge that the autonomic nervous system is shaped by early experience and reshaped with ongoing experience. This short book will offer an overview for non-specialist readers and provide a series of exercises and meditations (practices) that will allow readers to tune into their nervous systems, providing calming prompts to build and strengthen ventral vagal connections. This book includes a never-before-published comprehensive chapter on polyvagal theory, preceded by exercises that focus on mapping, reflecting, listening, deepening, creating and connecting. Readers who want to change a pattern and find new rhythm for their nervous systems can use this material to work toward those goals.

AUDIBLE EDITOR'S PICK A paradigm-shifting study of neurodivergent women-those with ADHD, autism, synesthesia, high sensitivity, and sensory processing disorder-exploring why these traits are overlooked in women and how society benefits from allowing their unique strengths to flourish. As a successful Harvard and Berkeley-educated writer, entrepreneur, and devoted mother, Jenara Nerenberg was shocked to discover that her "symptoms"--only ever labeled as anxiety-- were considered autistic and ADHD. Being a journalist, she dove into the research and uncovered neurodiversity-a framework that moves away from pathologizing "abnormal" versus "normal" brains and instead recognizes the vast diversity of our mental makeups. When it comes to women, sensory processing differences are often overlooked, masked, or mistaken for something else entirely. Between a flawed system that focuses on diagnosing younger, male populations, and the fact that girls are conditioned from a young age to blend in and conform to gender expectations, women often don't learn about their neurological differences until they are adults, if at all. As a result, potentially millions live with undiagnosed or misdiagnosed neurodivergences, and the misidentification leads to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and shame. Meanwhile, we all miss out on the gifts their neurodivergent minds have to offer. Divergent Mind is a long-overdue, much-needed answer for women who have a deep sense that they are "different." Sharing real stories from women with high sensitivity, ADHD, autism, misophonia, dyslexia, SPD and more, Nerenberg explores how these brain variances present differently in women and dispels widely-held misconceptions (for example, it's not that autistic people lack sensitivity and empathy, they have an overwhelming excess of it). Nerenberg also offers us a path forward, describing practical changes in how we communicate, how we design our surroundings, and how we can better support divergent minds. When we allow our wide variety of brain makeups to flourish, we create a better tomorrow for us all.