Cruel Compassion

Cruel Compassion PDF Author: Thomas Szasz
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815605102
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Cruel Compassion is the capstone of Thomas Szasz's critique of psychiatric practices. Reexamining psychiatric interventions from a cultural-historical and political-economic perspective, Szasz demonstrates that the main problem that faces mental health policy makers today is adult dependency. Millions of Americans, diagnosed as mentally ill, are drugged and confined by doctors for noncriminal conduct, go legally unpunished for the crimes they commit, and are supported by the state—not because they are sick, but because they are unproductive and unwanted. Obsessed with the twin beliefs that misbehavior is a medical disorder and that the duty of the state is to protect adults from themselves, we have replaced criminal-punitive sentences with civil-therapeutic 'programs.' The result is the relentless loss of individual liberty, erosion of personal responsibility, and destruction of the security of persons and property—symptoms of the transformation of a Constitutional Republic into a Therapeutic State, unconstrained by the rule of law. Szasz shows convincingly that not until we separate therapy from coercion—much as the founders separated theology from coercion—shall we be able to get a handle on our seemingly intractable psychiatric and social problems. No contemporary thinker has done more than Thomas Szasz to expose the myths and misconceptions surrounding insanity and the practice of psychiatry. Now, in Cruel Compassion, he gives us a sobering look at some of our most cherished notions about our humane treatment of society's unwanted, and perhaps more importantly, about ourselves as a compassionate and democratic people.

Cruel Compassion

Cruel Compassion PDF Author: Thomas Szasz
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815605102
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
Cruel Compassion is the capstone of Thomas Szasz's critique of psychiatric practices. Reexamining psychiatric interventions from a cultural-historical and political-economic perspective, Szasz demonstrates that the main problem that faces mental health policy makers today is adult dependency. Millions of Americans, diagnosed as mentally ill, are drugged and confined by doctors for noncriminal conduct, go legally unpunished for the crimes they commit, and are supported by the state—not because they are sick, but because they are unproductive and unwanted. Obsessed with the twin beliefs that misbehavior is a medical disorder and that the duty of the state is to protect adults from themselves, we have replaced criminal-punitive sentences with civil-therapeutic 'programs.' The result is the relentless loss of individual liberty, erosion of personal responsibility, and destruction of the security of persons and property—symptoms of the transformation of a Constitutional Republic into a Therapeutic State, unconstrained by the rule of law. Szasz shows convincingly that not until we separate therapy from coercion—much as the founders separated theology from coercion—shall we be able to get a handle on our seemingly intractable psychiatric and social problems. No contemporary thinker has done more than Thomas Szasz to expose the myths and misconceptions surrounding insanity and the practice of psychiatry. Now, in Cruel Compassion, he gives us a sobering look at some of our most cherished notions about our humane treatment of society's unwanted, and perhaps more importantly, about ourselves as a compassionate and democratic people.

The Compassionate Psychiatrist

The Compassionate Psychiatrist PDF Author: Marcia A. Murphy
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 43

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Book Description
I owe my psychiatric recovery process to several key figures. Russell Noyes Jr., MD, was one such personality, a physician without whom I would have undoubtedly been homeless, starving, and without hope. Hope, then, is key and Dr. Noyes was the embodiment of hope offered as a sacrifice to heal the wounded soul. He said that God had called him to be a psychiatrist. He touched many lives and I’m grateful to have known him. His unwavering and steadfast support helped me through many difficult circumstances and trials. Psychiatry is extremely challenging for all the healthcare providers who work in this field. Dr. Noyes even told me that he couldn’t have done his job without his faith which was what held him up. Character, then, what a person is made of, becomes evident by the fruit. What does a life leave behind in its wake? In this book discover how one man influenced my life for the better and had a major impact upon my mental health.

How Can I Help?

How Can I Help? PDF Author: David Goldbloom
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476706794
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
"A wise and compassionate book for those who suffer from mental illness and those who care for them."--Page 4 de la couverture.

Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy

Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy PDF Author: Christopher K. Germer
Publisher: Guilford Press
ISBN: 1462503764
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
Bringing together leading scholars, scientists, and clinicians, this compelling volume explores how therapists can cultivate wisdom and compassion in themselves and their clients. Chapters describe how combining insights from ancient contemplative practices and modern research can enhance the treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, substance abuse, suicidal behavior, couple conflict, and parenting stress. Seamlessly edited, the book features numerous practical exercises and rich clinical examples. It examines whether wisdom and compassion can be measured objectively, what they look like in the therapy relationship, their role in therapeutic change, and how to integrate them into treatment planning and goal setting. The book includes a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Compassion Focused Therapy

Compassion Focused Therapy PDF Author: Paul Gilbert
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000481352
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 828

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Book Description
Compassion Focused Therapy: Clinical Practice and Applications offers evidence-based guidance and extensive insight into the science behind compassion focused therapy. The first section of the book explores the evolution and physiological infrastructures of caring, and how compassion arises when humans use their complex cognitive competencies to address suffering deliberately and intentionally. With this framework and basis, the next sections of the book explore CFT applied to groups, specific interventions such as chair work, the importance of applying the principles of the therapy to oneself, the CFT therapeutic relationship, and a chapter offering a systematic review of the evidence for CFT. The third section offers a series of multi-authored chapters on interventions for a range of different mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, trauma, and many others. Being the first major clinical book on compassion focused therapy, with leading international researchers and clinicians addressing central problems, this landmark publication will appeal to psychotherapists from a variety of schools as well as being a vital resource for compassion focused therapists.

Toxic Psychiatry

Toxic Psychiatry PDF Author: Peter R. Breggin
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250108721
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 636

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Book Description
Prozac, Xanax, Halcion, Haldol, Lithium. These psychiatric drugs--and dozens of other short-term "solutions"--are being prescribed by doctors across the country as a quick antidote to depression, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other psychiatric problems. But at what cost? In this searing, myth-shattering exposé, psychiatrist Peter R. Breggin, M.D., breaks through the hype and false promises surrounding the "New Psychiatry" and shows how dangerous, even potentially brain-damaging, many of its drugs and treatments are. He asserts that: psychiatric drugs are spreading an epidemic of long-term brain damage; mental "illnesses" like schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety disorder have never been proven to be genetic or even physical in origin, but are under the jurisdiction of medical doctors; millions of schoolchildren, housewives, elderly people, and others are labeled with medical diagnoses and treated with authoritarian interventions, rather than being patiently listened to, understood, and helped. Toxic Psychiatry sounds a passionate, much-needed wake-up call for everyone who plays a part, active or passive, in America's ever-increasing dependence on harmful psychiatric drugs.

This Is Depression

This Is Depression PDF Author: Diane McIntosh
Publisher: Page Two
ISBN: 1989025560
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A widely respected authority on the diagnosis and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders, psychiatrist Dr. Diane McIntosh provides all the information you need to understand and combat this serious and isolating disorder. Written in an accessible format with compassion and humor, Dr. McIntosh takes an evidence-based approach as she outlines the causes, impact, and treatment of depression and along the way provides encouragement that it can be overcome.

The Compassionate Mind

The Compassionate Mind PDF Author: Paul Gilbert
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
ISBN: 1572248408
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
Leading depression authority Paul Gilbert presents The Compassionate Mind, a breakthrough book integrating evolutionary psychology, new insights from neuroscience, and mindfulness practice. This combination of techniques forms a new therapy called compassion focused therapy that can enhance readers' lives.

Sometimes Amazing Things Happen

Sometimes Amazing Things Happen PDF Author: Elizabeth Ford
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1942872305
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
From the Executive Director of Mental Health for Correctional Services in New York City, comes a revelatory and deeply compassionate memoir that takes readers inside Bellevue, and brings to life the world—the system, the staff, and the haunting cases—that shaped one young psychiatrist as she learned how to doctor and how to love. Elizabeth Ford went through medical school unsure of where she belonged. It wasn’t until she did her psychiatry rotation that she found her calling—to care for one of the most vulnerable populations of mentally ill people, the inmates of New York's jails, including Rikers Island, who are so sick that they are sent to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward for care. These men were broken, unloved, without resources or support, and very ill. They could be violent, unpredictable, but they could also be funny and tender and needy. Mostly, they were human and they awakened in Ford a boundless compassion. Her patients made her a great doctor and a better person and, as she treated these men, she learned about doctoring, about nurturing, about parenting, and about love. While Ford was a psychiatrist at Bellevue she becomes a wife and a mother. In her book she shares her struggles to balance her life and her work, to care for her children and her patients, and to maintain the empathy that is essential to her practice—all in the face of a jaded institution, an exhausting workload, and the deeply emotionally taxing nature of her work. Ford brings humor, grace, and humanity to the lives of the patients in her care and in beautifully rendered prose illuminates the inner workings (and failings) of our mental health system, our justice system, and the prison system.

Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living

Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living PDF Author: Erik van den Brink
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317653513
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Mindfulness involves learning to be more aware of life as it unfolds moment by moment, even if these moments bring us difficulty, pain or suffering. This is a challenge we will all face at some time in our lives, and which health professionals face every day in their work. The Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living programme presents a new way of learning how to face the pressures of modern living by providing an antidote which teaches us how to cultivate kindness and compassion – starting with being kind to ourselves. Compassion involves both sensitivity to our own and others’ suffering and the courage to deal with it. Integrating the work of experts in the field such as Paul Gilbert, Kristin Neff, Christopher Germer and Tara Brach, Erik van den Brink and Frits Koster have established an eight stage step-by-step compassion training programme, supported by practical exercises and free audio downloads, which builds on basic mindfulness skills. Grounded in ancient wisdom and modern science, they demonstrate how being compassionate shapes our minds and brains, and benefits our health and relationships. The programme will be helpful to many, including people with various types of chronic or recurring mental health problems, and can be an effective means of coping better with low self-esteem, self-reproach or shame, enabling participants to experience more warmth, safeness, acceptance and connection with themselves and others. Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living will be an invaluable manual for mindfulness teachers, therapists and counsellors wishing to bring the ‘care’ back into healthcare, both for their clients and themselves. It can also be used as a self-help guide for personal practice.