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Author: David Smail
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429907400
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
It is the main argument of this book that emotional and psychological distress is often brought about through the operation of social-environmental powers which have their origin at a considerable distance from those ultimately subjected to them. On the whole, psychology has concerned itself very little with the field of power which stretches beyond our immediate relations with each other, and this has led to serious limitations on the explanatory power of the theories it has produced. To illustrate this, typical cases of patient distress in the 1980s are examined. The decade when the right-wing of politics proclaimed there was no such thing as society gave rise to psychological distress across social classes, as long-standing societal institutions were dismantled. This is as much a work of sociology, politics, and philosophy, as it is of psychology. Fundamentals of an environmental understanding of distress are outlined. A person is the interaction of a body with the environment.
Author: David Smail
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429907400
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
It is the main argument of this book that emotional and psychological distress is often brought about through the operation of social-environmental powers which have their origin at a considerable distance from those ultimately subjected to them. On the whole, psychology has concerned itself very little with the field of power which stretches beyond our immediate relations with each other, and this has led to serious limitations on the explanatory power of the theories it has produced. To illustrate this, typical cases of patient distress in the 1980s are examined. The decade when the right-wing of politics proclaimed there was no such thing as society gave rise to psychological distress across social classes, as long-standing societal institutions were dismantled. This is as much a work of sociology, politics, and philosophy, as it is of psychology. Fundamentals of an environmental understanding of distress are outlined. A person is the interaction of a body with the environment.
Author: David Smail
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780094793408
Category : Affective disorders
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Through his examination of how visible and invisible social power - institutions, politics, the Establishment - wields an influence over our lives often beyond our immediate control, Smail leads us to a clear understanding of distress.'
Author: Peter Spinogatti
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1450254411
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 188
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Book Description
Serious books inevitably start with an instigating question, and the question that Explaining Unhappiness answers is this: What are you afraid would happen if you weren’t unhappy? Why? Because this is the question that everybody asks all their lives, without ever fully realizing it. We are deeply engaged in the assumptions contained within it. What are we assuming when we ask that question? First, we’re suggesting that it is possible to be happy regardless of the present circumstances in which we find ourselves—that unhappiness doesn’t just happen, but that it may be self-imposed. Further, this chosen state may have less to do with what is happening in the present and more to do with warding off a fearfully anticipated future. Finally, we must also believe that, somehow, unhappiness pays off. We are forced to conclude, then, that we value unhappiness. Explaining Unhappiness was written for anyone who has come to realize that “realizing your potential” and “increasing your coping skills” have become old chestnuts that never really gave you what you really wanted—namely, a definitive answer as to why you need to believe that something is wrong with you.
Author: David John Smail
Publisher: Pccs Books
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 132
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Book Description
Smail establishes a compelling framework that makes sense of our emotional distress as the outcome of contextual, social pressures.
Author: David Smail
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429914644
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 162
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Book Description
This book is directly aimed at sufferers of mental distress. The book's aim is to remove from sufferers the burden of 'fault' for their pain and to demystify some of the practices that surround the 'treatment' of mental illness. It is not exactly a self-help book because it is a false claim of any 'treatment' of mental illness that 'cure' can be brought about by exercise of will. Much of what causes mental distress is lack of power and resource, outside the control of the sufferer. Surviving without psychotherapy involves the appreciation of several things. First, the limited nature of therapeutic assistance - whilst clarification and support may help the sufferer understand his/her predicament and encourage the use of what resources the sufferer has, therapy cannot change the distal root causes of distress. Second, that only socio-political solutions can address some of the most powerful causes of distress, e.g., redundancy, housing and poverty. In sounding a cautionary note about psychoanalysis, Smail observes that mental distress is far more about money than sex.
Author: David Smail
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429914733
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 223
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Book Description
This work challenges the notion that anxiety and depression amount to a mental illness denoting that something is wrong with the individual sufferer. Instead, anxiety and depression are described as perfectly rational responses to difficulties in the sufferer's world, experienced subjectively by that person. An essential contrast is drawn between objective conceptions of normality (what reality ought to be as per commercial and other objectifying sources) and the reality of the individual's subjective experience of the world (abuse, unemployment, and so on). Chapters include tackling the myth of normality; examining shyness; and analysing the way in which assumptions behind the use of language can foster anxiety and depression. The book's primary purpose is to explain the meaning of anxiety as experienced by the sufferer. These insights also lead to a view, by way of secondary purpose, that the role of the therapist is not in 'curing' the individual, but rather to negotiate demystification and to provide insight into the effects of the problems in the sufferer's world, based on the sufferer and the therapist's shared subjective understanding.
Author: Jonathan Sadowsky
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509531661
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
Depression has colonized the world. Today, more than 300 million of us have been diagnosed as depressed. But 150 years ago, "depression" referred to a mood, not a sickness. Does that mean people weren't sick before, only sad? Of course not. Mental illness is a complex thing, part biological, part social, its definition dependent on time and place. But in the mid-twentieth century, even as European empires were crumbling, new Western clinical models and treatments for mental health spread across the world. In so doing, "depression" began to displace older ideas like "melancholia," the Japanese "utsushô," or the Punjabi "sinking heart" syndrome. Award-winning historian Jonathan Sadowsky tells this global story, chronicling the path-breaking work of psychiatrists and pharmacists, and the intimate sufferings of patients. Revealing the continuity of human distress across time and place, he shows us how different cultures have experienced intense mental anguish, and how they have tried to alleviate it. He reaches an unflinching conclusion: the devastating effects of depression are real. A number of treatments do reduce suffering, but a permanent cure remains elusive. Throughout the history of depression, there have been overzealous promoters of particular approaches, but history shows us that there is no single way to get better that works for everyone. Like successful psychotherapy, history can liberate us from the negative patterns of the past.
Author: David Smail
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429919778
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Taking Care established the author as an important social and political analyst whose background happened to be in clinical psychology. In this work the author develops the analysis of mental illness, and psychology in general, in the contexts of society, power and interest. People's experience is embodied in the world in which they exist. Notwithstanding the claims of some, psychology cannot, in the same way that magic cannot, change the nature of that experience fundamentally. At best, psychotherapy might provide a degree of understanding about that limitation. The historical relationship between psychology and magic is examined. The socio-political and economic structures of the society in which we live have the greatest influence on mental health, as on many other matters. Therefore, the individuation of focus in psychology on personal relationships, happiness, and sexuality can significantly miss the point. We need to develop political and social structures that 'take care' of people, to enable them to have meaningful 'public' lives.
Author: Andrew E. Clark
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691196958
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
A new perspective on life satisfaction and well-being over the life course What makes people happy? The Origins of Happiness seeks to revolutionize how we think about human priorities and to promote public policy changes that are based on what really matters to people. Drawing on a range of evidence using large-scale data from various countries, the authors consider the key factors that affect human well-being, including income, education, employment, family conflict, health, childcare, and crime. The Origins of Happiness offers a groundbreaking new vision for how we might become more healthy, happy, and whole.
Author: Sigmund Freud
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
ISBN: 0486282538
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 81
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Book Description
(Dover thrift editions).
