A Mad People’s History of Madness

A Mad People’s History of Madness PDF Author: Dale Peterson
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822974258
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
A man desperately tries to keep his pact with the Devil, a woman is imprisoned in an insane asylum by her husband because of religious differences, and, on the testimony of a mere stranger, "a London citizen" is sentenced to a private madhouse. This anthology of writings by mad and allegedly mad people is a comprehensive overview of the history of mental illness for the past five hundred years-from the viewpoint of the patients themselves.Dale Peterson has compiled twenty-seven selections dating from 1436 through 1976. He prefaces each excerpt with biographical information about the writer. Peterson's running commentary explains the national differences in mental health care and the historical changes that have take place in symptoms and treatment. He traces the development of the private madhouse system in England and the state-run asylum system in the United States. Included is the first comprehensive bibliography of writings by the mentally ill.

A Mad People’s History of Madness

A Mad People’s History of Madness PDF Author: Dale Peterson
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822974258
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Get Book Here

Book Description
A man desperately tries to keep his pact with the Devil, a woman is imprisoned in an insane asylum by her husband because of religious differences, and, on the testimony of a mere stranger, "a London citizen" is sentenced to a private madhouse. This anthology of writings by mad and allegedly mad people is a comprehensive overview of the history of mental illness for the past five hundred years-from the viewpoint of the patients themselves.Dale Peterson has compiled twenty-seven selections dating from 1436 through 1976. He prefaces each excerpt with biographical information about the writer. Peterson's running commentary explains the national differences in mental health care and the historical changes that have take place in symptoms and treatment. He traces the development of the private madhouse system in England and the state-run asylum system in the United States. Included is the first comprehensive bibliography of writings by the mentally ill.

Black Madness

Black Madness PDF Author: Therí Alyce Pickens
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478005505
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
In Black Madness :: Mad Blackness Therí Alyce Pickens rethinks the relationship between Blackness and disability, unsettling the common theorization that they are mutually constitutive. Pickens shows how Black speculative and science fiction authors such as Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, and Tananarive Due craft new worlds that reimagine the intersection of Blackness and madness. These creative writer-theorists formulate new parameters for thinking through Blackness and madness. Pickens considers Butler's Fledgling as an archive of Black madness that demonstrates how race and ability shape subjectivity while constructing the building blocks for antiracist and anti-ableist futures. She examines how Hopkinson's Midnight Robber theorizes mad Blackness and how Due's African Immortals series contests dominant definitions of the human. The theorizations of race and disability that emerge from these works, Pickens demonstrates, challenge the paradigms of subjectivity that white supremacy and ableism enforce, thereby pointing to the potential for new forms of radical politics.

The Spiritual Gift of Madness

The Spiritual Gift of Madness PDF Author: Seth Farber
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594777039
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 439

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Book Description
A bold call for the “insane” to reclaim their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural transformation • Explains how many of those diagnosed as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other forms of “madness” are not ill but experiencing a spiritual awakening • Explores the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement • Reveals how those seen as “mad” must embrace their spiritual gifts to help the coming global spiritual transition Many of the great prophets of the past experienced madness--a breakdown followed by a breakthrough, spiritual death followed by rebirth. With the advent of modern psychiatry, the budding prophets of today are captured and transformed into chronic mental patients before they can flower into the visionaries and mystics they were intended to become. As we approach the tipping point between extinction and global spiritual awakening, there is a deep need for these prophets to embrace their spiritual gifts. To make this happen, we must learn to respect the sanctity of madness. We need to cultivate Mad Pride. Exploring the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement as well as building upon psychiatrist R. D. Laing’s revolutionary theories, Seth Farber, Ph.D., explains that diagnosing people as mad has more to do with social control than therapy. Many of those labeled as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other kinds of “mad” are not ill but simply experiencing different forms of spiritual awakening: they are seeing and feeling what is wrong with society and what needs to be done to change it. Farber shares his interviews with former schizophrenics who now lead successful and inspiring lives. He shows that it is impossible for society to change as long as the mad are suppressed because they are our catalysts of social change. By reclaiming their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural revitalization, the mad--by seeding new visions for our future--can help humanity overcome the spiritual crisis that endangers our survival and lead us to a higher and long-awaited stage of spiritual development.

From MAD to Madness

From MAD to Madness PDF Author: Dr. Paul H. Johnstone
Publisher: SCB Distributors
ISBN: 0997896531
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This deathbed memoir by Dr. Paul H. Johnstone, former senior analyst in the Strategic Weapons Evaluation Group (WSEG) in the Pentagon and a co-author of The Pentagon Papers, provides an authoritative analysis of the implications of nuclear war that remain insurmountable today. Indeed, such research has been kept largely secret, with the intention “not to alarm the public” about what was being cooked up. This is the story of how U.S. strategic planners in the 1950s and 1960s worked their way to the conclusion that nuclear war was unthinkable. It drives home these key understandings: • That whichever way you look at it -- and this book shows the many ways analysts tried to skirt the problem -- nuclear war means mutual destruction • That Pentagon planners could accept the possibility of totally destroying another nation, while taking massive destructive losses ourselves, and still conclude that “we would prevail”. • That the supposedly “scientific answers” provided to a wide range of unanswerable questions are of highly dubious standing. • That official spheres neglect anything near a comparable effort to understand the “enemy” point of view, rather than to annihilate him, or to use such understanding to make peace. Dr. Johnstone’s memoirs of twenty years in the Pentagon tell that story succinctly, coolly and objectively. He largely lets the facts speak for themselves, while commenting on the influence of the Cold War spirit of the times and its influence on decision-makers. Johnstone writes: “Theorizing about nuclear war was a sort of virtuoso exercise in creating an imaginary world wherein all statements must be consistent with each other, but nothing need be consistent with reality because there was no reality to be checked against.” While remaining highly secret – so much so that Dr. Johnstone himself was denied access to what he had written – these studies had a major impact on official policy. They contributed to a shift from the notion that the United States could inflict “massive retaliation” on its Soviet enemy to recognition that a nuclear exchange would bring about Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). "From MAD to Madness could not be more timely reading. In it, a former senior Pentagon analyst from the last Cold War comes back from the past to warn us of the disaster we are courting in the new Cold War. We should heed his warning." —Ron Paul

Off the Deep End

Off the Deep End PDF Author: Nic Compton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472941101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Confined in a small space for months on end, subject to ship's discipline and living on limited food supplies, many sailors of old lost their minds – and no wonder. Many still do. The result in some instances was bloodthirsty mutinies, such as the whaleboat Sharon whose captain was butchered and fed to the ship's pigs in a crazed attack in the Pacific. Or mob violence, such as the 147 survivors on the raft of the Medusa, who slaughtered each other in a two-week orgy of violence. So serious was the problem that the Royal Navy's own physician claimed sailors were seven times more likely to go mad than the rest of the population. Historic figures such as Christopher Columbus, George Vancouver, Fletcher Christian (leader of the munity of the Bounty) and Robert FitzRoy (founder of the Met Office) have all had their sanity questioned. More recently, sailors in today's round-the-world races often experience disturbing hallucinations, including seeing elephants floating in the sea and strangers taking the helm, or suffer complete psychological breakdown, like Donald Crowhurst. Others become hypnotised by the sea and jump to their deaths. Off the Deep End looks at the sea's physical character, how it confuses our senses and makes rational thought difficult. It explores the long history of madness at sea and how that is echoed in many of today's yacht races. It looks at the often-marginal behaviour of sailors living both figuratively and literally outside society's usual rules. And it also looks at the sea's power to heal, as well as cause, madness.

Descent Into Madness

Descent Into Madness PDF Author: Vernon Frolick
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780888390264
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
The true story based on the diaries of murderer Michel Oros. Originally, after the fatal shootout with Oros at Teslin Lake, I had no intention of writing this book. In fact, when Garry Rodgers and I sat in the Skeena Pub after he got back and discussed the details of his experience, the very idea that someone might write the story - glorifying Oros, sensationalizing the murders and trivializing Mike Buday's death - was repugnant. Black and white reprint.

Madness and Civilization

Madness and Civilization PDF Author: Michel Foucault
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307833100
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Michel Foucault examines the archeology of madness in the West from 1500 to 1800 - from the late Middle Ages, when insanity was still considered part of everyday life and fools and lunatics walked the streets freely, to the time when such people began to be considered a threat, asylums were first built, and walls were erected between the "insane" and the rest of humanity.

Garden of Madness

Garden of Madness PDF Author: Tracy Higley
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 1401686818
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
The untold story of King Nebuchadnezzar’s daughter For seven years the Babylonian princess Tiamat has waited for the mad king Nebuchadnezzar to return to his family and to his kingdom. Driven from his throne to live as a beast, he prowls his luxurious Hanging Gardens, secreted away from the world. Since her treaty marriage at a young age, Tia has lived an opulent yet oppressive life in the palace. But her husband has since died and she relishes her newfound independence. When a nobleman is found murdered in the palace, Tia must discover who is responsible for the macabre death, even if her own freedom is threatened. As the queen plans to wed Tia to yet another prince, the powerful mage Shadir plots to expose the family’s secret and set his own man on the throne. Tia enlists the help of a reluctant Jewish captive, her late husband’s brother Pedaiah, who challenges her notions of the gods even as he opens her heart to both truth and love. In a time when few gave their hearts to Yahweh, Tia must decide if she is willing to risk everything—her possessions, her gods, and her very life—for the Israelites’ one God. Madness, sorcery, and sinister plots mingle like an alchemist’s deadly potion as Tia chooses whether to risk all to save the kingdom—and her family. “The biblical story of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar’s seven years as a madman, found in the Old Testament Book of Daniel, deepens and broadens thanks to veteran author Higley’s historical research and vivid imagination . . . Readers will find much to enjoy here: fine writing, suspense, mystery, faith, love, and a new look at an old story.” —Publishers Weekly “Higley gives readers a dose of biblical history set in King Nebuchadnezzar’s palatial gardens and a character like no other in Tiamat, devoted daughter of a king gone mad. The author’s insights into a woman’s inner strength as she searches for the one true God will leave readers rejoicing.”—Romantic Times TOP PICK "Her story will appeal not just to readers of historical fiction but also to those with an interest in biblical history." —Booklist

They Called Me Mad

They Called Me Mad PDF Author: John Monahan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101445874
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
Discover the true genius behind history's greatest "madmen". From Dr. Frankenstein to Dr. Jekyll, the image of the mad scientist surrounded by glass vials, copper coils, and electrical apparatus remains a popular fixture. In films and fiction, he's comically misguided, tragically misunderstood, or pathologically evil. But the origins of this stereotype can be found in the sometimes-eccentric real life men and women who challenged our view of the world and broke new scientific frontiers. They Called Me Mad recounts the amazing true stories of such historical luminaries as Archimedes, the calculator of pi and creator of the world's first death ray; Isaac Newton, the world's first great scientist and the last great alchemist; Nikola Tesla, who built the precursors of robots, fluorescent lighting, and particle beam weapons before the turn of the twentieth century-and more.

The Madness of King George

The Madness of King George PDF Author: Alan Bennett
Publisher: Screenplays
ISBN: 9780571176168
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 74

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Book Description
30 years into his reign, the King of England starts to go a little mad; his court hires a new, radical doctor to try to cure him, but what he really needs in the love of a good queen.