Understanding Troubled Minds: A Guide to Mental Illness and Its Treatment - Softcover

Bloch, Sidney; Singh, Bruce S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0814798594 ISBN 13: 9780814798591

Publisher: NYU Press, 1999

Synopsis

Most of us take our mental health for granted. But when confronted by mental illness in our family, our friends, or ourselves, even the most competent among us is likely to become bewildered.

Understanding Troubled Minds provides a calm and authoritative guide to the full range of specific mental illnesses and available treatments. It deals with particular patterns of illness in women, children, and the elderly. It stresses the value of partnership among psychiatrists, patients, and their families. And it places this knowledge within the framework of modern psychiatry-from the history of the profession to just what it is that psychiatrists and fellow health-workers do, and how they can help.

A sense of hope and optimism prevails within these pages. The authors, both eminent psychiatrists with long practical experience, stress that great strides are being made in the treatment of mental illness. But they also warn against the lure of the instant cure. Acknowledging the complexity of human nature, they weave the stories of real people and the insights of many writers throughout their text.

Balanced, up-to-date, thoroughly readable, and humanistic, this book will both increase our practical knowledge and deepen our understanding of mental illness.

About this title

About the Author:

Sidney Bloch is Associate Professor and Reader in Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne and Senior Psychiatrist at St Vincent's Hospital. He is the author of numerous books dealing with psychotherapy, ethics, and the family.

Review:

"This book introduces readers to these faiths, utilizing the best of both worlds: the NRMs get to express themselves in the words of their own hallowed texts, while the religious scholars Daschke and Ashcraft place these new and interesting belief systems in their proper historical and theosophical context."
-"New York Spirit",

"Overall, this scholarly, succinct work offers a balanced approach to a contentious topic. Public and academic libraries should purchase two copies, one for reference and one for circulating collections."
-"Library Journal",

""New Religious Movements: A Documentary Reader" is an essential text for courses on new religions. It combines well selected source materials with knowledgeable and accessible introductions. The appendix containing an essay by Douglas Cowan on the history of anticult and countercult movements is a very helpful addition."
-Catherine Wessinger, Co-general Editor of "Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions."

"New religious movements have been in the public eye for decades, and have been the focus of a great deal of debate. Now, at long last, they get to speak for themselves. Dereck Daschke and W. Michael Ashcraft have given us an outstanding resource for understanding new religions, one useful to scholars and students as well as the inquisitive general public. The selections are excellent, and the introductions are models of clarity and accuracy. this volume of primary materials is overdue and very welcome."
-Timothy Miller, University of Kansas

About this edition

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0814798594
• ISBN 13: 9780814798591
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 350