Worlds of Psychotic People brings a fresh twenty-first century voice to the lives of those with serious psychological disorders, focusing on the manner in which psychiatric patients experience their subjective worlds. Based on ethnographic research gathered at the psychiatric hospital of Saint Anthony's in the Netherlands over a period of five years, it seeks to describe from the perspective of the mental patient some of the fears and hopes that mark an individual's encounter with the fixed reality-structures of a clinical mental ward.

Worlds of Psychotic People brings a fresh twenty-first century voice to the lives of those with serious psychological disorders, focusing on the manner in which psychiatric patients experience their subjective worlds. Based on ethnographic research gathered at the psychiatric hospital of Saint Anthony's in the Netherlands over a period of five years, it seeks to describe from the perspective of the mental patient some of the fears and hopes that mark an individual's encounter with the fixed reality-structures of a clinical mental ward.

Between 1989 and 1993, with the end of the Cold War, Tiananmen, and Deng Xiaoping's renewed reform, Chinese intellectuals said goodbye to radicalism. In newly-founded journals, interacting with those who had left mainland China around 1949 to revive Chinese culture from the margins, they now challenged the underlying creed of Chinese socialism and the May Fourth Movement that there was 'no making without breaking'. Realistic Revolution covers the major debates of this period on radicalism in history, culture, and politics from a transnational perspective, tracing intellectual exchanges as China repositioned itself in Asia and the world. In this realistic revolution, Chinese intellectuals paradoxically espoused conservatism in the service of future modernization. They also upheld rationalism and gradualism after Maoist utopia but concurrently rewrote history to re-establish morality. Finally, their self-identification as scholars was a response to rapid social change that nevertheless left their concern with China's fate unaltered.

Between 1989 and 1993, with the end of the Cold War, Tiananmen, and Deng Xiaoping's renewed reform, Chinese intellectuals said goodbye to radicalism. In newly-founded journals, interacting with those who had left mainland China around 1949 to revive Chinese culture from the margins, they now challenged the underlying creed of Chinese socialism and the May Fourth Movement that there was 'no making without breaking'. Realistic Revolution covers the major debates of this period on radicalism in history, culture, and politics from a transnational perspective, tracing intellectual exchanges as China repositioned itself in Asia and the world. In this realistic revolution, Chinese intellectuals paradoxically espoused conservatism in the service of future modernization. They also upheld rationalism and gradualism after Maoist utopia but concurrently rewrote history to re-establish morality. Finally, their self-identification as scholars was a response to rapid social change that nevertheless left their concern with China's fate unaltered.

Distance and proximity are concepts par excellence to describe what may happen in times of illness and suffering. When one faces distress and suffering the need of proximity of the sick or suffering person may manifest itself, or the opposite, a need of distance exists. A doctor or an anthropologist may believe proximity is necessary, but the other can disagree. Illness raises questions for all individuals. The sick individual will question his or her relationship with others and being in the world. The authors of this volume take up issues of distance and proximity in illness and suffering in various situations.

"Els van Dongen" is assistant professor of medical anthropology at the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands). "Ruth Kutalek" is medical anthropologist at the Department of Ethnomedicine of the Institute for the History of Medicine, Vienna (Austria).

Written predominantly for those working in the mental health services, this book aims to extend the theory and practice of psychiatry. The chapters explore the culture of psychiatry as well as seeking to reaffirm the importance of anthropology for understanding psychiatric practice and psychological disorders in both socio-historical and individual contexts. The development and use of psychiatric diagnostic categories, the nature of expressed emotion within cross-cultural contexts and the religious context of perceptions of pathological behaviour are all refracted through an anthropological perspective. The second part of this book focuses clinical applications.