Madness Explained: Psychosis and Human Nature
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Review
This is a book to seduce a new generation into psychiatry and psychology. ("The Independent Magazine") Madness Explained is a substantial, yet highly accessible work. Full of insight and humanity, it deserves a wide readership. ("Paul Brooks, "Sunday Times")
The Sunday Times
'Madness Explained is a substantial, yet highly accessible work. Full of insight and humanity, it deserves a wide readership.'
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First Sentence
It is nearly twenty years since I first walked on to a psychiatric ward. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
It is nearly twenty years since I first walked on to a psychiatric ward. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
119 of 123 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Confession 1:I am a Psychiatrist.
Confession 2: Before I started this book I was expecting a deeply negative perception of modern psychiatry and little in the way of concrete evidence to support any alternative hypothesis. I anticipated this book to he read mainly by other psychologists, anti-psychiatrists and disgruntled patients.
However, I rapidly discovered that this is not the start of a new anti-psychiatry movement but in fact a fascinating, open-minded review of the current thinking about madness.
The first third of this book should be read by everyone involved in or interested in psychiatry, psychology, or just madness. It is a brilliant and genuinely gripping synthesis of the journey from dark age beliefs about madness to the current concepts. The author makes this potentially dreary history lesson vibrant, relevant and insightful and brings alive many of the key players whose legacies have outlived them, whether deservedly or not.
After this the author then goes on to explore in quite significant detail, the psychological and biological research into psychosis and related conditions. This is predictably heavier going but worth persevering with for the exciting and occasionally startling revelations.
As a result, he fairly comprehensively dismantles the traditional model of psychiatric classification but manages to bring even the most sceptical reader with him through this process.I did not find this as controversial as I expected, as most practising psychiatrists are already aware of the significant overlap in diagnoses and symptoms of these disorders. Richard Bentall then formulates draft models for approaching particular psychiatric symptoms.
There is much less controversial material in this book than I expected. The research discussed is reasonably balanced and the conclusions are tentative and never fundamentalist.
However, although interesting, evidence-based and realistic, the practical applications of the symptom-directed approach are not at all clear. Abandoning traditional psychiatric diagnoses altogether would at present leave patients, carers and health professionals with even less framework for approaching treatment, suggesting aetiology or predicting prognosis. This book may encourage us to be more flexible and patient-centred but I cannot yet see it changing frontline mental health care.
Confession 2: Before I started this book I was expecting a deeply negative perception of modern psychiatry and little in the way of concrete evidence to support any alternative hypothesis. I anticipated this book to he read mainly by other psychologists, anti-psychiatrists and disgruntled patients.
However, I rapidly discovered that this is not the start of a new anti-psychiatry movement but in fact a fascinating, open-minded review of the current thinking about madness.
The first third of this book should be read by everyone involved in or interested in psychiatry, psychology, or just madness. It is a brilliant and genuinely gripping synthesis of the journey from dark age beliefs about madness to the current concepts. The author makes this potentially dreary history lesson vibrant, relevant and insightful and brings alive many of the key players whose legacies have outlived them, whether deservedly or not.
After this the author then goes on to explore in quite significant detail, the psychological and biological research into psychosis and related conditions. This is predictably heavier going but worth persevering with for the exciting and occasionally startling revelations.
As a result, he fairly comprehensively dismantles the traditional model of psychiatric classification but manages to bring even the most sceptical reader with him through this process.I did not find this as controversial as I expected, as most practising psychiatrists are already aware of the significant overlap in diagnoses and symptoms of these disorders. Richard Bentall then formulates draft models for approaching particular psychiatric symptoms.
There is much less controversial material in this book than I expected. The research discussed is reasonably balanced and the conclusions are tentative and never fundamentalist.
However, although interesting, evidence-based and realistic, the practical applications of the symptom-directed approach are not at all clear. Abandoning traditional psychiatric diagnoses altogether would at present leave patients, carers and health professionals with even less framework for approaching treatment, suggesting aetiology or predicting prognosis. This book may encourage us to be more flexible and patient-centred but I cannot yet see it changing frontline mental health care.
125 of 132 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Writing as someone who lives with a son labelled 'schizophrenic', I am immensely grateful for this new and authoritative account of madness. Bentall refuses the Cartesian divide, which requires it to be seen either as a brain disease or as 'all in the mind'. He cites a vast array of evidence drawn from neurology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and cognitive psychology to show that brain and mind are two aspects of a single system, and that madness and sanity are two ends of a continuum. He also demolishes the century-old myth that there are two distict illnesses, schizophrenia and manic/depressive disorder.
Bentall has a hopeful message to sufferers and their friends and families, though you have to work through a long book to reach it: family therapy and cognitive behaviour therapy do have the potential to help people back towards sanity. The earlier in life these methods are used, the better the chances of returning to normality. Wider public awareness of the early signs of madness and increased investment in providing these therapies could greatly improve mental health.
It would be misleading to compare Bentall with R D Laing, who asserted a great deal without evidence. However, the book would have benefited by reference to Gregory Bateson's 'ecology of mind'. Bentall only once mentions 'Geoffrey' Bateson, whom he dismisses for blaming the family, though Bateson himself thought in terms not of blame but of two-sided breakdowns in communication.
Bentall has a hopeful message to sufferers and their friends and families, though you have to work through a long book to reach it: family therapy and cognitive behaviour therapy do have the potential to help people back towards sanity. The earlier in life these methods are used, the better the chances of returning to normality. Wider public awareness of the early signs of madness and increased investment in providing these therapies could greatly improve mental health.
It would be misleading to compare Bentall with R D Laing, who asserted a great deal without evidence. However, the book would have benefited by reference to Gregory Bateson's 'ecology of mind'. Bentall only once mentions 'Geoffrey' Bateson, whom he dismisses for blaming the family, though Bateson himself thought in terms not of blame but of two-sided breakdowns in communication.
Bateson had the misfortune to write about madness in the 1950s, just at the time when effective drug treatments were found, and psychiatry began fifty years of obsession with pills. It is to be hoped that the new excitement over atypical drugs will not prevent Bentall's message from being heard.
64 of 68 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A superb review of how Psychiatry has been getting psychosis wrong for the last hundred years: by focussing on flawed reductionist concepts of diagnosis rather than on seeing psychosis as a complex and heterogenous group of presentations and symptoms. By identifying these fundamental flaws of the medical model Bentall is able to demonstrate both how traditional approachs to research are bound to fail, and how a more psychological approach is developing greater understanding and more helpful treatment. Up to date, erudite, but also fascinating for the lay reader. Should be prescribed reading for all trainee psychiatrists, and for any psychologists working with psychosis who need to challenge the assumptions of their medical colleagues.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
mental health
I FINISHED THIS BOOK IN 2 NIGHTS. DR BENTALL TAKES A NEW VIEW ON HOW MENTAL HEALTH HAS NOT BEEN IMPROVED IN THE LAST 100 YEARS OR SO, AND VIEWS ON MENTAL HEALTH ARE STILL STUCK IN... Read more
Published 13 months ago by lisa46
Fascinating
As a layman I found this fascinating. Sad but hopeful in the sections on the history of treatment. The explanation of the known causes of Psychiatric conditions is both... Read more
Published 13 months ago by RL Cloherty
Great, thanks!
Delivery was quick and well packaged book was brand new as asked for and a inspiring read.
Published 19 months ago by N. Talbot
Excellent book
This is an excellent book which explains psychosis in layman's language. It gives a good insight into the thinking patterns of sufferers; this can be a great help for family and... Read more
Published on 12 May 2010 by Mrs. Vijaya Prasad
Fascinating and inspiring - though sometimes a little dry for me
This book helps make 'madness' seem much more normal - which I think is a great accomplishment. It lays out the idea of organising symptoms into categories according to what... Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2010 by Vrinda Pendred
Madness Explained
An amazing book recommended for people within the profession. An extremely informed description on the nature of psychosis providing all the information one might need in a... Read more
Published on 20 Dec 2009 by O. Vicha
Fascinating and accessible
For anyone who is interested - professionally or personally - in mental health and ill health, this book is a must read. It is fascinating and moreover entirely accessible. Read more
Published on 7 Aug 2009 by Ms. Sally Jones
No explanation
The title of this book is misleading. Bentall has no better - but, in my view, a potentially more confusing - explanation of madness then those he wishes to supplant. Read more
Published on 3 Mar 2009 by WhiteCrow
Could have been better.
Maybe it was me. Maybe working in Mental Health Care with people diagnosed with inconsistent and inaccurate labels distances me from much of what Richard Bentall writes here. Read more
Published on 8 Nov 2008 by Oddboy
excellent and readable
this is an excellent book which is both readable and yet gets into complexity of the issues
Published on 19 Mar 2008 by psychologist
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