A Profession Without Reason

A Profession Without Reason PDF Author: Bruce E. Levine
Publisher: AK Press
ISBN: 1849354618
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
There is today a crisis in psychiatry. Even the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Thomas Insel, has said: “Whatever we’ve been doing for five decades, it ain’t working.” The field requires a completely fresh look, and clinical psychologist Bruce Levine—a man often at odds with his profession—enlists the early Enlightenment philosopher Baruch de Spinoza to help work through the problem. Readers unfamiliar with Spinoza will be intrigued by the modern relevance of his radical philosophical, psychological, and political ideas. Levine compares the radical/moderate divide among Enlightenment thinkers to a similar divergence between contemporary critics of psychiatry, siding historically with Spinoza in order to bring an equivalent intellectual force to bear upon our modern crisis and calling for new forms of free and enlightened thinking.

A Profession Without Reason

A Profession Without Reason PDF Author: Bruce E. Levine
Publisher: AK Press
ISBN: 1849354618
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
There is today a crisis in psychiatry. Even the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Thomas Insel, has said: “Whatever we’ve been doing for five decades, it ain’t working.” The field requires a completely fresh look, and clinical psychologist Bruce Levine—a man often at odds with his profession—enlists the early Enlightenment philosopher Baruch de Spinoza to help work through the problem. Readers unfamiliar with Spinoza will be intrigued by the modern relevance of his radical philosophical, psychological, and political ideas. Levine compares the radical/moderate divide among Enlightenment thinkers to a similar divergence between contemporary critics of psychiatry, siding historically with Spinoza in order to bring an equivalent intellectual force to bear upon our modern crisis and calling for new forms of free and enlightened thinking.

Commonsense Rebellion

Commonsense Rebellion PDF Author: Bruce Levine
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9780826414502
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
In recent years the mental health industry has been attacked for the invalidity of its illnesses, the unreliability of its diagnoses, the dangers of its treatments, and its corruption by drug companies. Commonsense Rebellion integrates those critiques and goes further.Nearly 1 in 4 American adults take psychiatric drugs, and Ritalin production has increased 800 percent since 1990. Yet the mental health industry laments the fact that two-thirds of us with diagnosable mental disorders do not seek treatment. This book argues that "institutional mental health's" ever-increasing diseases, disorders, and drugs have diverted us from examining an important rebellion against an increasingly impersonal and coercive "institutional society" which worships speed, power, and technology. This has created fantastic wealth - at least for some - but its disregard for human autonomy, community, and diversity has come with a cost. Depression has reportedly increased tenfold since 1900, and suicide levels for teenage boys have tripled since 1960. Have human genetics and serotonin levels changed that much, or has society?>

The Depths

The Depths PDF Author: Jonathan Rottenberg
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465069738
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Nearly every depressed person is assured by doctors, well-meaning friends and family, the media, and ubiquitous advertisements that the underlying problem is a chemical imbalance. Such a simple defect should be fixable, yet despite all of the resources that have been devoted to finding a pharmacological solution, depression remains stubbornly widespread. Why are we losing this fight? In this humane and illuminating challenge to defect models of depression, psychologist Jonathan Rottenberg argues that depression is a particularly severe outgrowth of our natural capacity for emotion. In other words, it is a low mood gone haywire. Drawing on recent developments in the science of mood-and his own harrowing depressive experience as a young adult-Rottenberg explains depression in evolutionary terms, showing how its dark pull arises from adaptations that evolved to help our ancestors ensure their survival. Moods, high and low, evolved to compel us to more efficiently pursue rewards. While this worked for our ancestors, our modern environment-in which daily survival is no longer a sole focus-makes it all too easy for low mood to slide into severe, long-lasting depression. Weaving together experimental and epidemiological research, clinical observations, and the voices of individuals who have struggled with depression, The Depths offers a bold new account of why depression endures-and makes a strong case for de-stigmatizing this increasingly common condition. In so doing, Rottenberg offers hope in the form of his own and other patients' recovery, and points the way towards new paths for treatment.

Resisting Illegitimate Authority

Resisting Illegitimate Authority PDF Author: Bruce E. Levine
Publisher: AK Press
ISBN: 1849353255
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
The capacity to comply with abusive authority is humanity’s fatal flaw. Fortunately, within the human family there are anti-authoritarians—people comfortable questioning the legitimacy of authority and challenging and resisting its illegitimate forms. However, asResisting Illegitimate Authority reveals, authoritarians attempt to marginalize anti-authoritarians, who are scorned, shunned, financially punished, psychopathologized, criminalized, and even assassinated. Profiling a diverse group of U.S. anti-authoritarians—including Thomas Paine, Ralph Nader, Malcolm X, and Lenny Bruce—in order to glean useful lessons from their lives, No Badges is the first self-help manual for anti-authoritarians. Discussing anti-authoritarian approaches to depression, relationships, and parenting, it provides political, spiritual, philosophical, and psychological tools to help those suffering violence and marginalization in a society whose most ardent cheerleaders for “freedom” are often its most obedient and docile citizens. Resisting Illegitimate Authority is about bigotry, but not bigotry directed at race, religion, gender, or sexual preference. It is about bigotry directed at rebellious personalities and temperaments.

The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor

The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor PDF Author: Les Leopold
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603580719
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Book Description
A CIA-connected labor union, an assassination attempt, a mysterious car crash, listening devices, and stolen documents--everything you'd expect from the latest thriller. Yet, this was the reality of Tony Mazzocchi, the Rachel Carson of the U.S. workplace; a dynamic labor leader whose legacy lives on in today's workplaces and ongoing alliances between labor activists and environmentalists, and those who believe in the promise of America. In The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi, author and labor expert Les Leopold recounts the life of the late Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union leader. Mazzocchi's struggle to address the unconscionable toxic exposure of tens of thousands of workers led to the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and included work alongside nuclear whistleblower Karen Silkwood. His noble, high-profile efforts forever changed working conditions in American industry--and made him enemy number one to a powerful few. As early as the 1950s, when the term "environment" was nowhere on the political radar, Mazzocchi learned about nuclear fallout and began integrating environmental concerns into his critique of capitalism and his union work. An early believer in global warming, he believed that the struggle of capital against nature was the irreconcilable contradiction that would force systemic change. Mazzocchi's story of non-stop activism parallels the rise and fall of industrial unionism. From his roots in a pro-FDR, immigrant family in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, through McCarthyism, the Sixties, and the surge of the environmental movement, Mazzocchi took on Corporate America, the labor establishment and a complacent Democratic Party. This profound biography should be required reading for those who believe in taking risks and making the world a better place. While Mazzocchi's story is so full of peril and deception that it seems almost a work of fiction, Leopold proves that the most provocative and lasting stories in life are those of real people.

It's Not All In Your Head

It's Not All In Your Head PDF Author: Tony Giordano
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1846945992
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Only by discovering the origin of his depression in childhood trauma was Tony Giordano able to defeat this misunderstood illness.

Out of the Shadows

Out of the Shadows PDF Author: E. Fuller Torrey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The author "reveals how we have failed our mentally ill and offers a viable, provocative blueprint for change."--Jacket.

Surviving America's Depression Epidemic

Surviving America's Depression Epidemic PDF Author: Bruce E. Levine
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 9781933392714
Category : Culture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Millions of us have experienced periods of low morale, struggled to find cheer in the day-to-day world, and then found ourselves pacified into believing the smooth-talking spokesperson in yet another medication ad. We’ve all heard them, there’s no denying the fact that these ads have made each of us wonder: Do I suffer from depression? Would I be happier and healthier if I simply consulted my physician and requested (insert drug name here)? The rate of clinical depression in the U.S. has increased more than tenfold in the last fifty years. Is this epidemic properly being addressed by the insurance, pharmaceutical, and governmental powers-that-be or exacerbated by a failing system focused on instant results and high profit margins? Dr. Bruce E. Levine, a highly respected clinical psychologist, argues the latter and provides a compelling alternative approach to treating depression that makes lasting change more likely than with symptom-based treatment through medication. Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic delves into the roots of depression and links our increasingly consumer-based culture and standard-practice psychiatric treatments to worsening depression, instead of solving it. In an easy-to-understand narrative style, Dr. Levine prescribes antidotes to depression including the keys to building morale and selfhealing. Unlike short-term, drug-based solutions, these antidotes foster a long-term cycle where people rediscover passion and purpose, and find meaning in acting on their societal concerns. A groundbreaking work, atypical of the shelf-loads of “pep-talk” based self help books on the market, Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic provides the knowledge and counsel of a practicing psychologist in a digestible format that will improve your future. A must read for guidance and pastoral counselors; non-dogmatic psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers; and those tired of the TV ads shilling for better living through chemistry.

Get Up, Stand Up

Get Up, Stand Up PDF Author: Bruce E. Levine
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603583769
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose recent US wars and Wall Street bailouts, yet most remain passive and appear resigned to powerlessness. In Get Up, Stand Up, Bruce Levine offers an original and convincing explanation for this passivity. Many Americans are deeply demoralized by decades of oppressive elitism, and they have lost confidence that genuine democracy is possible. Drawing on phenomena such as learned helplessness, the abuse syndrome, and other psychological principles and techniques for pacifying a population, Levine explains how major US institutions have created fatalism. When such fatalism and defeatism set in, truths about social and economic injustices are not enough to set people free. However, the situation is not truly hopeless. History tells us that for democratic movements to get off the ground, individuals must recover self-respect, and a people must regain collective confidence that they can succeed at eliminating top-down controls. Get Up, Stand Up describes how we can recover dignity, confidence, and the energy to do battle. That achievement fills in the missing piece that, until now, has undermined so many efforts to energize genuine democracy. Get Up, Stand Up details those strategies and tactics that oppressed peoples have successfully employed to gain power. We the People can unite, gain strength, wisely do battle, and wrest power away from the ruling corporate-government partnership (the "corporatocracy"). Get Up, Stand Up explains how.

Devil in the Milk

Devil in the Milk PDF Author: Keith Woodford
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603582118
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
This groundbreaking work is the first internationally published book to examine the link between a protein in the milk we drink and a range of serious illnesses, including heart disease, Type 1 diabetes, autism, and schizophrenia. These health problems are linked to a tiny protein fragment that is formed when we digest A1 beta-casein, a milk protein produced by many cows in the United States and northern European countries. Milk that contains A1 beta-casein is commonly known as A1 milk; milk that does not is called A2. All milk was once A2, until a genetic mutation occurred some thousands of years ago in some European cattle. A2 milk remains high in herds in much of Asia, Africa, and parts of Southern Europe. A1 milk is common in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Europe. In Devil in the Milk, Keith Woodford brings together the evidence published in more than 100 scientific papers. He examines the population studies that look at the link between consumption of A1 milk and the incidence of heart disease and Type 1 diabetes; he explains the science that underpins the A1/A2 hypothesis; and he examines the research undertaken with animals and humans. The evidence is compelling: We should be switching to A2 milk. A2 milk from selected cows is now marketed in parts of the U.S., and it is possible to convert a herd of cows producing A1 milk to cows producing A2 milk. This is an amazing story, one that is not just about the health issues surrounding A1 milk, but also about how scientific evidence can be molded and withheld by vested interests, and how consumer choices are influenced by the interests of corporate business.