Mental Health
Here you will find books on the subject of mental health. Reviews are listed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent review appearing first in the list.
Enactive Psychiatry
Enactive PsychiatryLudwig Wittgenstein famously described the philosophical method as ‘therapy’, as a process that produces therapeutic relief by dissolving the linguistic misconceptions that masquerade as philosophical problems. While Sanneke de Haan’s Enactive Psychiatry
Hughes’ Outline of Modern Psychiatry
Hughes’ Outline of Modern PsychiatryPsychiatry is under siege. The past president of the NIMH, Dr Steve Hyman, has documented the difficulties in a recent invited article,…
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Talking Back to Psychiatry
Talking Back to PsychiatrySince the 1960s various mental health consumer organizations have advocated for mental health consumers, and for improved services. Loosely referred to a…
Deinstitutionalization And People With Intellectual Disabilities
Deinstitutionalization And People With Intellectual DisabilitiesThe past five years have seen a reinvigoration of scholarship on disability. Deinstitutionalization and People with Intellectual Disabilities…
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November of the Soul
November of the SoulThe encyclopedic book, November of the Soul, is a fascinating, comprehensive and illuminating look at the issue of suicide. Colt examines suicid…
Empowering People with Severe Mental Illness
Empowering People with Severe Mental IllnessEmpowerment is a ubiquitous concept. Everyone from mental health professionals, rights activists and life coaches to advertisers and teachers seeks to em…
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From Trauma to Transformation
From Trauma to TransformationPerhaps because in South African we are so immersed in trauma and trauma therapy because of our level of violence in society, it is that I found this boo…
Washing My Life Away
Washing My Life AwayThis is a moving and delightfully unpretentious little book written by someone who had an entirely normal childhood and who traces the onset of obsessive…
Destructive Trends in Mental Health
Destructive Trends in Mental HealthThis book consists of 15 chapters about various trends in mental health. With one exception, all of the chapters are written by psychologists. Contri…
The Broken Mirror
The Broken MirrorFrom the start, one has to say that the endlessly repetitive case studies are not engaging or interesting, and for the most part Phillips presents the co…
Mental Health At The Crossroads
Mental Health At The CrossroadsThe plethora of books presenting "models" of mental health and psychiatry is testament to the disputed nature of just what is going on when a p…
On Our Own, Together
On Our Own, TogetherOne aspect of Sally Clay’s experience is, most unfortunately, far from unique. For instance, in the concluding chapter she writes: "I was one of tho…
Social Inclusion of People with Mental Illness
Social Inclusion of People with Mental IllnessThis book is a collaboration between two professors of psychiatry, one in the UK, the other in the US, so it provides the opportunity to explore issues i…
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Multifamily Groups in the Treatment of Severe Psychiatric Disorders
Multifamily Groups in the Treatment of Severe Psychiatric DisordersIt’s likely that few philosophers who consult this service know about the unusually effective mental health treatment described in this book: psychoeduca…
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50 Signs of Mental Illness
50 Signs of Mental IllnessAlthough it seems a most unlikely thing to do, Dr Hicks has set out to create an A to Z cocktail menu of the diagnoses that could theoretically plague us…
Understanding Paranoia
Understanding ParanoiaAt least once all of us have shown a type of behavior that someone has labeled as paranoid. Nevertheless paranoia is not a mere hurtful epithet. As a mat…
Mental Health Policy in Britain
Mental Health Policy in BritainThe asylum casts a long shadow over psychiatry. Broad picture policy debates are frequently framed in terms of whether deinstitutionalization has ‘worked…
Recovery in Mental Illness
Recovery in Mental IllnessThe disentanglement of the thicket of thorny issues, associated with "recovery" from mental illness, is the crux of the riveting tome, entitled…
Masters of the Mind
Masters of the MindThis book outlines seven "coexisting paradigms" that aim to understand the life of the mind. These paradigms reflect the insights of thinkers a…
Remembering Trauma
Remembering Trauma"If faced with a choice between being miserable and not knowing why, and being miserable and being able to blame someone else, may people will ch…
Straight Talk about Psychological Testing for Kids
Straight Talk about Psychological Testing for KidsThe word nebulous might indeed be applied to our thinking when psychological testing is mooted for anyone, especially a child. The then-president of the…
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Tarnation
TarnationTarnation is a remarkable documentary by Jonathan Caoette about the life of his mother, Renee, and his relationship with her. His mother fell off…
Living Outside Mental Illness
Living Outside Mental IllnessLarry Davidson has conducted numerous qualitative studies into aspects of schizophrenia, focusing on the experiences of those diagnosed with this disorde…
Loving Someone With Bipolar Disorder
Loving Someone With Bipolar DisorderThis book has a very precise aim and is targeted at a very precise audience although not quite as narrow as the subtitle would suggest. Its averred aim i…
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Relational Mental Health
Relational Mental HealthJosé Guimón is a psychiatrist at the University of Geneva Medical School. In the Foreword, Otto Kernberg says Guimón is one of the most prestigious E…