Note: this is a review I wrote for the Mad in America blog, and also for Amazon.com.
“Rethinking Madness: Towards a Paradigm Shift In Our Understanding and Treatment of Psychosis” by Paris Williams, Ph.D., describes how our current mental health system fails not only in devising treatments for psychosis, but also in even thinking clearly about such experiences , and describes what is needed as a replacement.
If madness, or psychosis, is just a result of a physical defect in the brain, then it makes sense to devote little effort to understanding the experiences of mad people, and to focus instead on suppressing such experiences as much as possible. That’s what our vast “mental health” industry has been doing for decades, without success. In this book, Williams outlines a very different approach, one that prioritizes understanding and valuing personal experiences.
Before writing this book, Williams spent time as a hang glider pilot, winning one world championship and several national awards. He then experienced a mental crisis that could have been labeled psychosis, but he avoided getting diagnosed or “helped” by psychiatry, and instead worked through his experiences on his own. This caused him to get interested in helping others, and he became a psychologist and also a researcher interested in detailed exploration of the experiences of people who underwent psychosis and then full recovery. It seems clear that the depth of understanding in the book emerges out of his personal experiences and his interest in the experiences of others, while it may be that his experiences as a glider pilot helped him develop a habit of forming a clear overview of areas to be explored. In any case, the view of madness that emerges appears to be a profound integration which has breadth and well as depth. [click to continue…]
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