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On Freud's “Neurosis and Psychosis” and “The Loss of Reality in Neurosis and Psychosis” explores these two key papers on the topics of psychosis and neurosis and their relationship to the unconscious and to reality.The contributors to this book approach these texts from both a historical and a contemporary point of view, highlighting their fundamental contributions and comparing Freud's thoughts with modern psychoanalytic theory. The chapters demonstrate the ongoing richness of Freud's work and his legacy by highlighting new ideas and developments and include both clinical vignettes and theoretical insight. The contributors also raise questions that deserve further study, about the understanding and treatment of psychosis in children, distinctions and similarities between autism and psychosis, and the way in which aspects of our rapidly changing world – social media, climate change, AI - influence the evolution of psychotic states.On Freud's “Neurosis and Psychosis” and “The Loss of Reality in Neurosis and Psychosis” will be essential reading for psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically oriented clinicians in practice and in training. It will also be of interest to academics and scholars of psychoanalytic studies and to readers interested in how modern clinicians interpret Freud's work.

Psychotische ervaringen gaan gepaard met verwarring en onbegrip. Niet alleen kamp je met lastige belevingen. Vaak moet je ook opboksen tegen misvattingen vanuit de samenleving en de hulpverlening. Onze denkbeelden over de oorzaken, gevolgen en behandeling van psychose zijn dan ook aan vernieuwing toe. Een gedeeld goed begrip is de eerste stap naar herstel. Psychose begrijpen in 33 vragen beantwoordt de grote vragen en onderzoekt de misverstanden rond psychose. Daarmee levert het voor het eerst een volledig, hoopvol beeld op van alle aspecten van omgaan met psychose, van crisis tot herstel: voor getroffenen zelf, voor naasten en voor hulpverleners.

Psychosis and the Traumatised Self explores what it is like to experience psychosis for individuals with histories of childhood physical and sexual abuse. The book additionally explores how meaning expressed in psychosis might originate from the effects of abuse, but also long-term life difficulties, motivations, memories, social history, and struggles to narrate and understand. One chapter focuses on refugees who suffered trauma as adults and later became psychotic. Another chapter examines how trauma leads to the destruction of certainty and trust, thereby opening a pathway to persecutory ideas. Drawing on a developmental model of trauma, it is proposed that dissociated parts of the self that developed during childhood contribute to psychosis in adults when undergoing difficulties and stress.Presented with case illustrations, the book will be useful for those who work in the area of psychosis and abuse to understand the experiences of individuals, and how we might develop appropriate therapy and care.

This highly readable book provides a comprehensive examination of the use of Open Dialogue as a treatment for psychosis. It presents the basic principles and practice of Open Dialogue, explains the training needed to practice and explores how it is being developed internationally.Open Dialogue for Psychosis includes first-hand accounts of the process by people receiving services due to having psychotic experiences, their family members and professionals who work with them. It explains how aspects of Open Dialogue have been introduced in services around the world, its overlap with and differentiation from other psychological approaches and its potential integration with biological and pharmacological considerations. The book concludes with a substantive section on the research available and its limitations.Open Dialogue for Psychosis will be a key text for clinicians and administrators interested in this unique approach, particularly those who recognise that services need to change for the better and are seeking guidance on how this can be achieved. It will also be suitable for people who have experienced psychosis and members of their families and networks.See the below link to the dedicated book webpage:https://opendialogueforpsychosis.com/

Contacten tussen mensen bouwen voort op de verhalen die ze elkaar vertellen. Verhalen over vroeger, en over wie ze zijn of wat ze willen. Bij een psychose verliezen we de grip op die verhalen, en op hoe we ermee onze weg kunnen zoeken. Ook wanneer we praten over psychose is het soms moeilijk een heldere taal te vinden. Toch ervaart 15 procent van de bevolking ooit psychotische ervaringen. Een beter begrip van wat er gebeurt tijdens een psychose kan onze kijk op geestelijke gezondheid radicaal veranderen. Waarom een psychose niet zo gek is gaat op zoek naar begrip, hoop en herstel. Het biedt een nieuw perspectief op wat het betekent een psychose door te maken, en hoe we een taal kunnen vinden om met psychische problemen om te gaan. Bovenal is het een blik op hoe beter spreken en luisteren waanzin een menselijk gezicht kunnen geven.

Jongeren onderzoeken volop wie ze zijn, wat ze willen en hoe ze op eigen benen kunnen staan. Dat kan heftig zijn, en bij jongeren met een psychosegevoeligheid kan het zelfs hun hele denkwereld op losse schroeven zetten. Ze lopen meer risico op het verbreken van connecties, op isolement en eenzaamheid. Net in het overbruggen van die afstand ligt de sleutel tot herstel. Hierop kunnen inspelen en de juiste vragen stellen, biedt de beste hoop voor de toekomst. Waarom is net de adolescentie een gevoelige periode voor psychose? Hoe komen we samen met het gezin door een crisis? Hoe kan een begeleiding op maat eruitzien? En waar liggen er openingen voor verandering en herstel? Psychose bij jongeren wil ruggensteun bieden voor hulpverleners en is een gids om in verbinding te gaan met psychosegevoelige jongeren. Op basis van praktijkervaring en getuigenissen biedt het een positieve en persoonlijke blik op hoe vertrouwen tot herstel kan leiden.

Attachment Theory and Psychosis: Current Perspectives and Future Directions is the first book to provide a practical guide to using attachment theory in the assessment, formulation and treatment of a range of psychological problems that can arise as a result of experiencing psychosis. Katherine Berry, Sandra Bucci and Adam N. Danquah, along with an international selection of contributors, expertly explore how attachment theory can inform theoretical understanding of the development of psychosis, psychological therapy and mental health practice with service users with psychosis. In the first section of the book, contributors describe the application of attachment theory to the understanding of paranoia, voice-hearing, negative symptoms, and relationship difficulties in psychosis. In the second section of the book, the contributors consider different approaches to working therapeutically with psychosis and demonstrate how these approaches draw on the key principles of attachment theory. In the final section, contributors address individual and wider organisation perspectives, including a voice-hearer perspective on formulating the relationship between voices and life history, how attachment principles can be used to organise the provision of mental health services, and the influence of mental health workers'own attachment experiences on therapeutic work. The book ends by summarising current perspectives and highlighting future directions. Written by leading mental health practitioners and researchers, covering a diverse range of professional backgrounds, topics and theroetical schools, this book is significant in guiding clinicians, managers and commissioners in how attachment theory can inform everyday practice. Attachment Theory and Psychosis: Current Perspectives and Future Directions will be an invaluable resource for mental health professionals, especially psychologists and other clinicians focusing on humanistic treatments, as well as postgraduate students training in these areas.

A Psychoanalytic Approach to Treating Psychosis shows how, by understanding the antecedents and dynamics of psychosis, a psychoanalytic approach can offer a long-term alternative to the only psychotropic therapy and an explanation of the infantile origin of the illness.This ground-breaking examination begins by clearly explaining complex terms and theories from the most significant thinkers in psychoanalysis. Split into three parts, it then explores the problems faced when following one specific technique for understanding the psychotic process. Practical as well as theoretical, Part 2 illustrates how to prepare an appropriate setting for the patient, including the importance of listening and the analyst's approach, as well as highlighting key features of the condition, such as delusions, hallucinations, infantile withdrawal and psychotic dreams. Acknowledging that psychosis is a psychic transformation which the mind works as a sensorial organ, the author asserts that the seeds are sown in childhood through emotional trauma, leading to withdrawal into a fantasy world. Brimming with real-life vignettes throughout, Part 3 is dedicated to a unique and lengthy case study to illustrate the challenges of working with such patients. It also looks positively towards future research on psychosis informed by insights from neuroscience.Innovative and accessible, this book will be essential reading for anyone working in psychosis, including psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, psychologists and physicians.

Those with psychotic disorders can see or hear things that do not exist in reality. Dealing with Psychotic Disorders explores what these disorders are like, how they affect people's lives, and today's best treatment options.

Psychoanalysis of the Psychoses brings together a distinguished international set of contributors, offering a range of views and approaches, to explore the latest thinking in the psychoanalytic treatment of psychosis and related disorders. Drawing on findings from neuroscience, theory and clinical material from many schools of psychoanalytic thought, this book offers a comprehensive guide to understanding how psychosis is conceptualised from a psychoanalytic perspective. It looks at how to work with psychotic patients, typical problems in treating psychosis and the role of pharmacology. It demonstrates the relational dimension, capable of strengthening the patient's observing Ego and facilitating the integration of the different areas of the personality. This process can identify and work through the main psychological stress factors involved in psychotic disturbances, transforming chaotic thoughts into springboards for important insights, and offering patients the precious chance to construct for the first time a creative relationship with their own existence. Psychoanalysis of the Psychoses will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as psychiatrists wishing to draw upon psychoanalytic ideas in their work.

Psychoanalysis Meets Psychosis proposes a major revision of the psychoanalytic theory of the most severe mental illnesses including schizophrenia. Freud believed that psychosis is the consequence of a biologically determined inability to attain and sustain a normal or neurotic mental organization. Michael Robbins proposes instead that psychosis is the outcome of a different developmental pathway. Conscious mind functions in two qualitatively different ways, primordial conscious mentation and reflective representational thought, and psychosis is the result of persistence of a primordial mental process, which is adaptive in infancy, in later situations in which it is neither appropriate nor adaptive. In Part I Robbins describes how the medical model of psychosis underlies the current approach of both psychiatry and psychoanalysis, despite the fact that neuroscience has failed to confirm the model's basic organic assumption. In Part II Robbins examines two of Freud's models of psychosis that are based on the assumption of a constitutional inability to develop a normal or neurotic mind. The theories of succeeding generations of analysts have for the most part reiterated the biases of Freud's two models, so that psychoanalysis considers the psychoses beyond its scope. In Part III Robbins proposes that the psychoses are the result of disturbances in the attachment-separation phase of development, leading to maladaptive persistence of a primordial form of mental activity related to Freud's primary process. Finally, in Part IV Robbins describes a psychoanalytic approach to treatment based on his model. The book is richly illustrated with material from Robbins'clinical practice.Psychoanalysis Meets Psychosis has the potential to undo centuries of alienation between society and psychotic persons. The book offers an understanding of severe mental illness that will be novel and inspiring not only to psychoanalysts but to all mental health professionals.

This is the first book of its kind that attempts to distill Lacan's views on psychosis for both a specialized and non-specialized audience. An attempt is made to present Lacan's unorganized theories to apply to conceptual paradigms in psychoanalysis and the humanities as well as applied clinical practice. This effort is in the spirit of fostering dialogue and educating different theoretical orientations within psychoanalysis on what Lacan and his followers have contributed to emerging contemporary perspectives on psychotic phenomena in both normative and pathological populations. Within Lacanian circles there is debate over what constitutes psychosis, including defining the ordinary from pathological variants that have historically defined the phenomena as a mental illness. Here psychosis is not defined by hegemonic authoritarian psychiatry, but rather as a conceptual framework or philosophical perspective supported by descriptive narrative and symptomatic phenomenology that challenges preconceived notions of what we typically consider psychosis to entail. In this book a variety of perspectives are presented by internationally respected scholars and clinicians who examine what Lacan had to say about psychosis, from his nuanced theories represented in select texts, including omissions, extrapolations, and new applications, as well as how clinical methodology and technique have been adapted and advanced by practitioners treating psychotic individuals. Lacan on Psychosis will be of interest to academics, scholars, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, philosophy, cultural theory, the humanities, and the behavioral sciences.

Psychosis Under Discussion: How We Talk About Madness examines the ways in which psychosis is discussed by considering the relationship between language and the perception of mental disorder. A wide range of perspectives is discussed – including historical terms, personal accounts, psychiatric terminology, psychoanalysis and later theoretical analyses, advocacy, anti-psychiatry, slang and humour, and media coverage – and each way of discussing psychosis is revealing. For example, psychiatric terminology and related research, in its efforts to understand and clarify can seem distancing, dispassionate, and too sure of its ground, whereas the language of advocacy, while being supportive and sensitive, can also seem euphemistic and evasive.In the discourse of mental disorder, both the content of views and the manner in which they are expressed are influential, making it important to take into account both. Psychosis Under Discussion puts these and other important issues under the microscope. International in range, the book's analysis draws on psychiatry, psychology, philosophy, linguistics and history. Written in Michael Farrell's well-known clear and direct style, the book is essential reading for all those interested in understanding mental disorder and the role of language.

A psychiatric assessment is a structured clinical conversation, complemented by observation and mental state examination, and supplemented by a physical examination and the interview of family members when appropriate. After the initial interview, the clinician should be able to establish whether the individual has a mental health problem or not, the nature of the problem, and a plan for the most suitable treatment. Essentials of Psychiatric Assessment provides the resident or beginning psychiatrist with a complete road map to a thorough clinical evaluation.

The book is a psychoanalytic understanding of psychosis as a particular organisation of the personality, based on'psychotic personality'(Bion) and'pathological organisations'(Steiner). The theoretical development is traced through Freud, Klein and Bion, along with contemporary Kleinian authors. An important role is granted to psychic pain as the cornerstone of psychopathology, and particularly to the psychotic patient's difficulties in dealing with it. Bion's distinction between'feeling psychic pain and suffering it'is considered an indicator when evaluating the patient's ability to cope with psychoanalytic treatment. The author's experience with a schizophrenic patient is related in detail, offering a view of the patient and her relationship with the analyst from various different angles, and showing how the psychoanalytic method can be used to treat psychosis.

Do psychotic disorders make sense? Are psychotic symptoms amenable to interpretation? Understanding Psychosis: A Psychoanalytic Approach takes the various pathways to psychotic illness outlined by psychoanalytic clinicians and scholars and integrates them into a model that allows a systematic assessment of relevant psychodynamic dimensions in the diagnosis of psychotic disorders, and which serves as a guide to psychotherapy with psychotically ill patients.Joachim Küchenhoff reviews and integrates various psychoanalytic concepts and theories about psychosis into a multi-dimensional psychodynamic model that allows an assessment and understanding of the patient's subjective experience, objective psychological capabilities, and interpersonal resources. Küchenhoff helps the therapist to establish a basic attitude in working psychodynamically with patients and to understand the dynamics of the therapeutic relationship. Understanding Psychosis also addresses specific issues that can arise in work with clients experiencing psychosis, including understanding imminent crises or precursor states, elucidating semiotic qualities in seemingly negative symptoms, differentiating the psychotic and a non-psychotic part of the personality and providing a dynamic approach to the psychopharmacological treatment. Clinical vignettes and three detailed case reports are included in the book. Understanding Psychosis will be an essential guide for psychiatrists, psychotherapists and psychoanalysts working with patients experiencing psychosis. It will also be of use to psychologists, and academics and students of psychotherapy, psychiatry and psychoanalysis for psychosis.

The goal of psychotherapy as formulated in this revision of a classic text is to improve ego function of severely disturbed patients who are often hospitalized. This book shows why and how. It describes the psychotherapeutic techniques that aid patients to understand the meaning of the psychotic symbols so that they can experience reality and their emotions as separate entities. Medication effects and the neurobiology of psychotic and near psychotic patients are explained and evaluated in terms of specific ego dysfunction so that psychopharmacology may be targeted. With the first edition originally a recipient of the prestigious Heinz Hartmann Award, this valuable resource is a go-to guide for clinicians who treat patients suffering from crippling mental disorders.

This book focuses on the priority that psychoanalysis places on the individual, how the treatment is conceived theoretically and the ways it can be incorporated in the overall organisation of an institution. It brings together the histories of a number of psychoanalytically informed hospitals.

C'est à Ernst von Feuchtersleben que l'on attribue la paternité, en 1845, du terme de psychose au sens très global de « maladie de l'esprit » (Seelenkrankheit), alors que celui de névrose désignait « toutes ces affections étranges du sentiment ou du mouvement qui sont sans fièvre » (William Cullen, 1776), et dont certaines seulement se traduisaient par des troubles mentaux.

With New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Pete Earley, and including chapters by her sister—award-winning actress Glenn Close—Jessie Close shares her story of living with severe bipolar disorder and her tumultuous journey to find the emotional fortitude to bring herself back from the edge.At a young age, Jessie Close struggled with symptoms that would transform into severe bipolar disorder in her early twenties, but she was not properly diagnosed until the age of fifty. Jessie and her three siblings, including actress Glenn Close, spent many years in the Moral Re-Armament cult. Jessie passed her childhood in New York, Switzerland, Connecticut, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), and finally Los Angeles, where her life quickly became unmanageable. She was just fifteen years old.Jessie's emerging mental illness led her into a life of addictions, five failed marriages, and to the brink of suicide. She fought to raise her children despite her ever worsening mental conditions and under the strain of damaged romantic relationships. Her sister Glenn and certain members of their family tried to be supportive throughout the ups and downs, and Glenn's vignettes in Resilience provide an alternate perspective on Jessie's life as it began to spiral out of control. Jessie was devastated to discover that mental illness was passed on to her son Calen, but getting him help at long last helped Jessie to heal as well. Eleven years later, Jessie is a productive member of society and a supportive daughter, mother, sister, and grandmother.In Resilience, Jessie dives into the dark and dangerous shadows of mental illness without shying away from its horror and turmoil.

This new collection of essays by distinguished international scholars and clinicians will revolutionize your understanding of madness. Essential for those on both sides of the couch eager to make sense of the plethora of theories about madness available today, Lacan on Madness: Madness, Yes You Can't provides compelling and original perspectives following the work of Jacques Lacan. Patricia Gherovici and Manya Steinkoler suggest new ways of working with phenomena often considered impermeable to clinical intervention or discarded as meaningless. This book offers a fresh view on a wide variety of manifestations and presentations of madness, featuring clinical case studies, new theoretical developments in psychosis, and critical appraisal of artistic expressions of insanity.Lacan on Madness uncovers the logics of insanity while opening new possibilities of treatment and cure. Intervening in current debates about normalcy and pathology, causation and prognosis, the authors propose effective modalities of treatment, and challenge popular ideas of what constitutes a cure offering a reassessment of the positive and creative potential of madness. Gherovici and Steinkoler's book makes Lacanian ideas accessible by showing how they are both clinically and critically useful. It is invaluable reading for psychoanalysts, clinicians, academics, graduate students, and lay persons.

First published in 1950, La nevrose d'abandon was and still is a ground-breaking work. The author's research turns on two clinical observations: the frequent occurrence of analysands whose neurotic symptoms are unrecognizable when measured against any of the Freudian diagnostic models, and the relatively large number of these patients who sought help from her, having already undergone thorough classically Freudian treatments with analysts whose abilities were never in question, but whose efforts did nothing to relieve patient suffering. What all these subjects had in common, the author observed, were extme and debilitating feelings of abandonment, insecurity and lack of self-worth, originally ignited by severe pre-oedipal trauma. Having described the neurosis of abandonment, The author goes on to outline every diagnostic tool and treatment methodology, developed over many years, which can be deployed in the successful and lasting eradication of this pervasive neurosis.

Assessing Psychosis: A Clinician's Guide offers both a practical guide and rich clinical resource for a broad audience of mental-health practitioners seeking to sharpen their understanding of diagnostic issues, clinical concepts, and assessment methods that aid in detecting the presence of psychotic phenomena. Practicing psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and psychiatric nurses will find this a valuable resource for clinical practice, training, and teaching purposes.

Creativity and Psychotic States in Exceptional People tells the story of the lives of four exceptionally gifted individuals: Vincent van Gogh, Vaslav Nijinsky, José Saramago and John Nash. Previously unpublished chapters by Murray Jackson are set in a contextual framework by Jeanne Magagna, revealing the wellspring of creativity in the subjects'emotional experiences and delving into the nature of psychotic states which influence and impede the creative process.Jackson and Magagna aim to illustrate how psychoanalytic thinking can be relevant to people suffering from psychotic states of mind and provide understanding of the personalities of four exceptionally talented creative individuals. Present in the text are themes of loving and losing, mourning and manic states, creating as a process of repairing a sense of internal damage and the use of creativity to understand or run away from oneself. The book concludes with a glossary of useful psychoanalytic concepts.Creativity and Psychotic States in Exceptional People will be fascinating reading for psychiatrists, psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, other psychoanalytically informed professionals, students and anyone interested in the relationship between creativity and psychosis.

This book draws together advances in the understanding, assessment and treatment of stress, negative symptoms, social anxiety, OCD, PTSD and mood disturbance in people with a diagnosis of psychosis, providing a practical guide for clinicians. CBT for psychosis draws on the principles and interventions developed for anxiety and depression and adapts these to treat psychotic symptoms. CBT for schizophrenia is now widely accepted as an effective treatment in the reduction of psychotic symptoms. A review of findings led the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to recommend offering CBT to all people with schizophrenia. Content includes: the role of stress in psychosis; negative symptoms - emotional, motivational and behavioural deficits; social anxiety disorder; obsessional compulsive disorder; post-traumatic stress disorder; mood disturbance in psychosis; and client handouts. It features: 174 pages, perfect bound (246 x 171mm).

How can we understand the pull towards that which we fear: psychosis? In this thought provoking book, Abensour proposes the idea of a temptation towards psychosis rather than a regression, as a response to the hatred or denial of the subject's origins. She shares her reflections on her psychoanalytic work with psychotic patients focusing on their struggle to achieve a coherent sense of a self that can inhabit a shared world. Abensour locates this struggle within the universal human struggle to achieve a balance between what we can and cannot allow ourselves to know about the reality of death and of our insignificance in the world.

There is increasing recognition that emotional distress plays a significant part in the onset of psychosis, the experience of psychosis itself and in the unfolding of recovery that follows. This book brings together leading international experts to explore the role of emotion and emotion regulation in the development and recovery from psychosis. Psychosis and Emotion offers extensive clinical material and cutting-edge research with a focus on: the diverse theoretical perspectives on the importance of emotion in psychosisthe interpersonal, systemic and organisational context of recovery from psychosis and the implications for emotional distressthe implications of specific perspectives for promoting recovery from psychosisWith thorough coverage of contemporary thinking, including psychoanalytic, cognitive, developmental, evolutionary and neurobiological, this book will be a valuable resource to clinicians and psychological therapists working in the field.

Qualitative methods are increasingly useful as psychiatry shifts from a focus on symptom reduction to enabling people to live satisfying and meaningful lives. It becomes important to achieve a deeper understanding of the ways in which mental illness interferes with everyday life and the ways in which people can learn to manage and minimize illness in order to pursue their lives as fully as possible. Although qualitative methods in psychiatry have seen a dramatic upsurge, relatively few published studies use such methods specifically to explore the lives, socio-culturally and experientially, of those with first-episode psychosis. This book highlights qualitative research in early psychosis. The first half of the book centres on the individual lived experience of psychosis—from the perspective of the individual, the family, and the practitioner. The second half moves from the micro level to the macro, focusing on broader system issues, including medical trainees'encounters with first-episode psychosis in the emergency room and the implementation of first-episode clinics in the UK and Australia. This text is timely, as the proliferation of early-psychosis clinics worldwide demands that we inquire into the subjective experience of those impacted by psychosis and the social contexts within which it occurs and is lived out. Hearing Voices is the first in a series of titles from The Community Health Systems Resource Group at The Hospital for Sick Children. This series will educate researchers, policy-makers, students, practitioners, and interested stakeholders on such topics as early intervention in psychosis, aggressive-behaviour problems, eating-related disorders, and marginalized youth in educational contexts.

Children whose minds as well as bodies have been damaged by the intrusions of sexual abuse, violence or neglect, and others, quite different, who are handicapped by their own mysterious sensitivities to more minor deprivations, may experience a type of black despair and cynicism that require long-term treatment and test the stamina of the psychotherapist to the utmost.In Live Company, Anne Alvarez reflects on thirty years'experience of treating autistic, psychotic and borderline children and adolescents by the methods of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Central to the book is the moving story on an autistic child's long struggle between sanity and madness, in which the author describes the arduous journey that she as therapist and he as patient made towards new understanding and his partial recovery.Modern developments in psychoanalytic theory and technique mean that such children can be treated with some success. In the book the author discusses these developments, and also describes some of the areas of convergence and divergence between organicist and psychodynamicist theories of autism. Particularly important is her integration of psychoanalytic theory with the new findings in infant development and infant psychiatry. This has enabled her to formulate some new and exciting ideas and speculate on the need for some additions to established theory.Anne Alvarez has produced a professionally powerful and englightening book, drawn from her extensive experience as a child psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, which will be of interest to all professionals involved with children and adolescents as well as anyone interested in madness and the growth of the mind.

Psychosis as a Personal Crisis seeks to challenge the way people who hear voices are both viewed and treated. This book emphasises the individual variation between people who suffer from psychosis and puts forward the idea that hearing voices is not in itself a sign of mental illness.In this book the editors bring together an international range of expert contributors, who in their daily work, their research or their personal acquaintance, focus on the personal experience of psychosis.Further topics of discussion include: accepting and making sense of hearing voices the relation between trauma and paranoia the limitations of contemporary psychiatry the process of recovery. This book will be essential reading for all mental health professionals, in particular those wanting to learn more about the development of the hearing voices movement and applying these ideas to better understanding those in the voice hearing community.

Extensive scientific research has been conducted into understanding and learning more about psychotic experiences. However, in existing research the voice of subjective experience is rarely taken into consideration. In this book, first-person accounts are brought centre-stage and examined alongside current research to suggest how personal experience can contribute to professional understanding, and therefore the treatment, of psychosis.Experiencing Psychosis brings together a range of contributors who have either experienced psychosis on a personal level or conducted research into the topic. Chapters are presented in pairs providing information from both personal and research perspectives on specific aspects of psychosis including: hearing voices, delusional beliefs, and trauma as well as cultural, existential and spiritual issues. Experts from the field recognise that first and foremost psychosis is a human experience and that those who suffer from psychotic episodes must have some involvement in any genuine attempts to make sense of the experience.This book will be essential reading for all mental health professionals involved with psychosis. The accessible style and compelling personal histories will also attract service users and their families.

In spite of improved access to psychosocial interventions, many people with psychosis continue to experience persistent problems which act as significant barriers to their recovery. This book investigates risk and problem behaviours in psychosis, including staff and service factors that can impede the delivery of effective care. Problematic and Risk Behaviours in Psychosis provides a new approach for assessment, formulation and intervention within such problem behaviours in a team context. Of particular interest will be: an outline of the SAFE (Shared Assessment, Formulation and Education) approach an integrative model for understanding risk and problematic behaviour shared risk assessment and management processes approaches to reducing team and carer barriers to effective care the use of CBT in day-to-day interactions with clients a set of formulation-driven strategies for managing problematic behaviours case studies and vignettes providing guidance and highlighting the benefits of the approach. This book will have particular appeal to professionals working in specialist community, hospital-based and residential services who often struggle to help those with the most complex mental health problems who are hardest to reach. It is also an excellent resource for those engaged in training in psychological therapies, risk assessment and management.

How does one become a man or a woman? Psychoanalysis shows that this is never an easy task and that each of us tackles it in our own, unique way. In this important and original study, the author focuses on what analytic work with psychotic subjects can teach us about the different solutions human beings can construct to the question of sexual identity. Through a careful exposition of Lacanian theory, the author argues that classical gender theory is misguided in its notion of'gender identity'and that Lacan's concept of'sexuation'is more precise. Clinical case studies illustrate how sexuation occurs and the ambiguities that may surround it. In psychosis, these ambiguities are often central, and the author explores how they may or may not be resolved thanks to the individual's own constructions. This book is not only a major contribution to gender studies but also an invaluable aid to the clinician dealing with questions of sexual identity.

This book contains an eighteen hour seminar - given over a three day period - presented by Michael Eigen in Seoul, Korea, in 2007. The seminar traces transformations of madness and faith in psychoanalysis - particularly Freud, Klein, Bion and Winnicott - emphasizing basic rhythms of experience steeped in clinical details, social issues and personal concerns, and takes up problems of madness and faith besetting the world today. It is filled with clinical portrayals and discussions of personal and social issues. Eigen describes ways we live through challenging experiences in therapy relevant for how life is lived. Discussions go back and forth between clinical details and cultural dilemmas, touching the taste of life, how one feels to oneself. This work is at once personal, learned, and down-to-earth. One gets the feeling that a lifetime of dedicated work is being condensed and transmitted, mind to mind, person to person, soul to soul. The reader will feel he or she is a member of an ongoing seminar alive today, this moment, carrying the work further.

Family members can play a significant role in helping to identify early signs of psychosis, in seeking prompt and appropriate treatment for their relative, and in promoting the recovery process. The guide is divided into two parts: • Part I is designed to help families to support their relatives'recovery. It includes information about treatment of psychosis, crisis intervention, and working with mental health professionals. • Part II focusses on the family's journey to recovery. It describes specialized services for families, self-care strategies, and communication and limit-setting tips.

Telling Stories? explores the contemporary state of affairs in the understanding and treatment of psychosis. An inclusive approach to mental distress requires that in order to truly understand psychosis we must begin by listening to those who know this from the inside out; the voices and narrative of those who have been condemned as'unanalysable'and mad. Far from being fantastical, the complex stories that are being articulated communicate painful truths and the myriad ways in which the human psyche survives overwhelming trauma. This book is the culmination of an integrated and creative alliance between those on the cutting edge, experientially, in research, diagnosis, and treatment; this multidisciplinary dialogue proposes a new relational and attachment orientated paradigm for the 21st century. In contrast to the containment model that is currently favoured, this advocates listening and talking therapies, and the healing power of a loving relationship, offering those with psychosis the possibility of more nourishing engagement with the world.

This book postulates that the trigger of the psychotic condition is located in the basic processes which structure the first emotional relations. It presents some of the reasons why patients succumb to the attraction of a course doomed to result in the permanent derangement of their minds.

The Psychotic Wavelength provides a psychoanalytical framework for clinicians to use in everyday general psychiatric practice and discusses how psychoanalytic ideas can be of great value when used in the treatment of seriously disturbed and disturbing psychiatric patients with psychoses, including both schizophrenia and the affective disorders. In this book Richard Lucas suggests that when clinicians are faced with psychotic patients, the primary concern should be to make sense of what is happening during their breakdown. He refers to this as tuning into the psychotic wavelength, a process that allows clinicians to distinguish between, and appropriately address, the psychotic and non-psychotic parts of the personality. He argues that if clinicians can find and identify the psychotic wavelength, they can more effectively help the patient to come to terms with the realities of living with a psychotic disorder.Divided into five parts and illustrated throughout with illuminating clinical vignettes, case examples and theoretical and clinical discussions, this book covers: the case for a psychoanalytical perspective on psychosis a historical overview of psychoanalytical theories for psychosis clinical evidence supporting the concept of a psychotic wavelength the psychotic wavelength in affective disorders implications for management and education. The Psychotic Wavelength is an essential resource for anyone working with disturbed psychiatric patients. It will be of particular interest to junior psychiatrists and nursing staff and will be invaluable in helping to maintain treatment aims and staff morale. It will also be useful for more experienced psychiatrists and psychoanalysts.

The experience of madness – which might also be referred to more formally as ‘schizophrenia'or ‘psychosis'– consists of a complex, confusing and often distressing collection of experiences, such as hearing voices or developing unusual, seemingly unfounded beliefs. Madness, in its various forms and guises, seems to be a ubiquitous feature of being human, yet our ability to make sense of madness, and our knowledge of how to help those who are so troubled, is limited.Making Sense of Madness explores the subjective experiences of madness. Using clients'stories and verbatim descriptions, it argues that the experience of'madness'is an integral part of what it is to be human, and that greater focus on subjective experiences can contribute to professional understandings and ways of helping those who might be troubled by these experiences.Areas of discussion include: how people who experience psychosis make sense of it themselves scientific/professional understandings of ‘madness'what the public thinks about ‘schizophrenia'Making Sense of Madness will be essential reading for all mental health professionals as well as being of great interest to people who experience psychosis and their families and friends.

Psychiatry is in the process of rediscovering its roots. It seemed as if the long history of interest in the impact of society on the rates and course of serious mental illness had been forgotten, overtaken by the advances of neuroscience and genetics. However, as our knowledge of physiological and genetic processes improves it becomes increasingly clear that social conditions and experiences over the life course are crucial to achieving a full understanding. Old controversies are giving way to genuinely integrated models in which social, psychological and biological factors interact over time, culminating in the onset of psychosis. This book reviews these issues from an international perspective, laying the foundations for a new understanding of the psychotic disorders, with profound implications for health policy and clinical practice. It should be read by all members of the mental health team and those responsible for service organization and management.

Psychoses provides a unique perspective on the challenges associated with understanding and treating psychoses, bringing together insights and developments from medicine and psychology to give a full and balanced overview of the subject. Johan Cullberg draws on his extensive experience working with those suffering from first-episode psychosis to investigate issues including vulnerability factors, phases of psychosis, prevention, the potential for recovery and contemporary attitudes to psychosis. Particular attention is paid to how therapeutic interventions can either support or obstruct the ‘self-healing'properties of many psychoses.This sensitive and humane perspective on the nature and treatment of psychoses will be of interest to all mental health professionals interested in increasing their understanding and awareness of this subject.

In Glacial Times, Salomon Resnik brings together various facets of his work as a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, working in both the private sector and in institutional settings and in a wide range of cultural contexts, to provide a careful summary of a lifetime of clinical work. Drawing on a wide range of psychoanalytic, philosophical and literary sources, and vignettes from the author's extensive clinical experience, this book brings the subject of psychosis to life and demonstrates how the study of psychoanalysis and psychosis forces us to confront fundamental ontological questions. Subjects covered include: Transmission and Learning The role of the body in psychosis The Universe of Madness: Frozen words and thoughts The Internal world and the philosophy of the unconcsious Psychotic thinking and language The Symbolic order and its deficiencies. This synthesis of over fifty years of experience as a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist treating psychotic patients will fascinate anyone working in these fields.

This book examines the key ordering—disordering processes of the psychotic self. It draws on Sigmund Freud, Jung, object relation and selfpsychologies, and, particularly, the work of Winnicott, Bion, and Elkin.

When madness is intolerable for sufferers, how do professional carers remain sane? Psychiatric institutions have always been places of fear and awe. Madness impacts on family, friends and relatives, but also those who provide a caring environment, whether in large institutions of the past, or community care in the present. This book explores the effects of the psychotic patient's suffering on carers and the culture of psychiatric services. Suffering Insanity is arranged as three essays. The first concerns staff stress in psychiatric services, exploring how the impact of madness demands a personal resilience as well as careful professional support, which may not be forthcoming. The second essay attempts a systematic review of the nature of psychosis and the intolerable psychotic experience, which the patient attempts to evade, and which the carer must confront in the course of daily work. The third essay returns to the impact of psychosis on the psychiatric services, which frequently configure in ways which can have serious and harmful effects on the provision of care. In particular, service may succumb to an unfortunate schismatic process resulting in sterile conflict, and to an assertively scientific culture, which leads to an unwitting depersonalisation of patients. Suffering Insanity makes a powerful argument for considering care in the psychiatric services as a whole system that includes staff as well as patients; all need attention and understanding in order to deliver care in as humane a way as possible. All those working in the psychiatric services, both in large and small agencies and institutions, will appreciate that closer examination of the actual psychology and interrelations of staff, as well as patients, is essential and urgent.

This book is a unique volume in which leading clinicians and researchers in the field of cognitive therapy for psychosis illustrate their individual approaches to the understanding of the difficulties faced by people with psychosis and how this informs intervention.Chapters include therapies focused on schizophrenia and individual psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions (including paranoia). Beck's original case study of cognitive therapy for psychosis from 1952 is reprinted, accompanied by his 50-year retrospective analysis. Also outlined are treatments for:• bipolar disorder • dual diagnosis • schema-focused approaches • early intervention to prevent psychosis • adherence to medicationThis book will be useful to clinicians and researchers alike, and will be an invaluable resource to mental health practitioners working with individuals experiencing psychosis.

This book focuses on the study and treatment of patients with psychotic illnesses. It draws on Kleinian concepts and Scandinavian clinical experience to show how a psychotherapeutic approach can, through a combination of empathy and sound theory, stabilise, contain, integrate and tame the psychosis.

In a long and distinguished career Salomon Resnik has established himself as a psychoanalyst of international reputation. The present volume gathers together, for the first time in an English translation, writings essential for a fuller understanding of his important and original ideas.

Between 1978 and 1985 Dr Herbert Rosenfeld was one of a number of British analysts invited by a group of Societa di Psicoanalisi Italiani members to conduct a series of seminars and supervisions for the purpose of deepening and refining that group's clinical skills and theoretical understanding. This book is an illuminating record of that encounter, and a warm tribute to the significant influence of Rosenfeld's contribution.It is divided into two parts -'Theoretical'and'Clinical', and based on a selection of verbatim transcripts recorded at the time. These transcripts, with their dialogical form, succeed in capturing much of the specificity of oral exchange, and thus convey a strong impression of Rosenfeld the man as much as clinician or theoretician. Rosenfeld remained to the end a continuously creative analyst and these'last thoughts'provide the reader with ample evidence of his undimmed gifts. His subtle intuitions, meticulously close attention to both patient's and analyst's interpretations, and fine appreciation of the intricacies of the analytic encounter, are abundantly present.

During the third year of his famous seminar, Jacques Lacan gives a concise definition of psychoanalysis:'Psychoanalysis should be the science of language inhabited by the subject. From the Freudian point of view man is the subject captured and tortured by language.'Since psychosis is a special but emblematic case of language entrapment, Lacan devotes much of this year to grappling with distinctions between the neuroses and the psychoses. As he compared the two, relationships, symmetries, and contrasts emerge that enable him to erect a structure for psychosis. Freud's famous case of Daniel Paul Schreber is central to Lacan's analysis. In demonstrating the many ways that the psychotic is `inhabited, possessed by language', Lacan draws upon Schreber's own account of his psychosis and upon Freud's notes on this'case of paranoia'. The analysis of language is both fascinating and enlightening.

First published in 1987. This volume presents a collection of chapters on varied aspects of psychotic symptoms, largely within the context of positive versus negative symptoms. These chapters cover a broad range of aspects of these symptoms, such as longitudinal course, cognitive correlates, biochemical and structural correlates, conceptual issues, and research methods. The majority of these chapters were presented at the SUNY-Binghamton/Cornell University conference on schizophrenia that took place on October 17-19, 1985, in Ithaca, NY. That conference was designed to provide a forum for the dissemination of information on psychotic symptoms in general, with the overriding framework of positive versus negative symptoms.