The Future of Mental Health: Deconstructing the Mental Disorder Paradigm - Softcover

Maisel, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1412862493 ISBN 13: 9781412862493

Publisher: Routledge, 2015

Synopsis

The Future of Mental Health drills to the heart of the current mental health crisis, where hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide receive unwarranted “mental disorder diagnoses." It paints a picture of how mental health providers can improve their practices to better serve individuals in distress and outlines necessary steps for a mental health revolution. Eric Maisel’s goal is to inject more human interaction into the therapeutic process.

Maisel powerfully deconstructs the “mental disorder" paradigm that is the foundation of current mental health practices. The author presents a revolutionary alternative, a “human experience"paradigm. He sheds a bright light on the differences between so-called “psychiatric medication"and mere chemicals with powerful effects, explains why the DSM-5 is silent on causes, silent on treatment, and wedded to illegitimate “symptom pictures." Maisel describes powerful helping alternatives like communities of care, and explains why one day “human experience specialists" may replace current mental health professionals.

An important book for both service providers and service users, The Future of Mental Health brilliantly unmasks current mental health practices and goes an important step further: it describes what we are obliged to do in order to secure better mental health services—and better mental health—for everyone.

About this title

About the Author:

Eric Maisel, an American psychotherapist, writes the “Rethinking Psychology” column for Psychology Today and leads workshops nationally and internationally. He is the author of more than forty books.

Review:

“Eric Maisel goes a long way toward explaining our current situation and pointing us in new directions in his excellent new book. Highly recommended!”

—Louis Breger, Founding President, Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis

“Dr. Maisel’s bold new book is a refreshing seed in [the] forlorn mental health landscape. Maisel not only paints a picture of what a new mental health countryside could look like, but he also provides useful suggestions of how we might get there and why it might be important that we start heading in that direction today.”

—Tim Carey, Director of the Centre for Remote Health, a joint centre of Flinders University and Charles Darwin University, blogger at Psychology Today

“Dr. Maisel envisions a new paradigm and framework that restores compassion, complexity, and dignity to the care of suffering souls. A ground-breaking book, a clarion call and a bold vision.”

—Shawn Rubin, Editor in Chief, Journal of Humanistic Psychology and co-editor, University Professors Press

“Eric Maisel's book is extraordinary. Profoundly innovative and revolutionary, it describes the Herculean but not impossible tasks facing the mental health establishment and reshuffles all the cards in psychiatry.”

—Patrick Landman, Psychiatrist, Chairman, STOP DSM France

“Maisel really throws the gauntlet down with this one, and the psychiatric community will find it difficult to ignore his challenge.”

—Mark D. White, Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the College of Staten Island/CUNY, blogger at Psychology Today, and author of The Illusion of Well-Being

“The Future of Mental Health is a highly readable, compelling and challenging book on a topic that affects all of us. Everyone should read it! A wonderful and much needed book.”

– Anne Cooke, Clinical Director, Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK, coeditor Recent Advances in Understanding Mental Illness and Understanding Bipolar Disorder

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1412862493
• ISBN 13: 9781412862493
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 236