How to Survive without Psychotherapy - Couverture rigide

Smail, D.J.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0094754004 ISBN 13 : 9780094754003

Editeur : Constable, 1996

Synopsis

Smail's book is a radical critique of conventional psychotherapy, allowing readers to see their distress in terms of a natural response to events beyond their control. What is needed is not the will to become different, but the clarity to see through the confusion caused by the notions of morality, responsibility and change.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

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.

David Smail analyses the claims of 'treatments' of mental distress. He explains why willpower alone cannot remove symptoms. There is discussion about resources open to an individual in positioning themselves against stressors to minimise the effect of the same. That said, feelings of stress and anxiety are regularly an entirely rational response to the sufferer's predicament.

Revue de presse

David Smail's analyses, commitments and elegant prose comprise classic works in the tradition of independent scholarship. He translated the traditional assumptions of psychotherapy into the structural and situational determinants of human problems. He was a psychologist who argued against psychology and came to see the barriers to social progress institutionalized within society itself. A man of the left, he made the left less doctrinaire and more relevant. He is greatly missed. --William M. Epstein, author of Empowerment as Ceremony and Psychotherapy as Religion

David Smail showed that if we want to ease our unhappiness then there is no other way but to change the world in which we live, beginning with the illusions perpetrated by the psychology industry. David's work forms a rich intellectual legacy and a testament to a man who spoke up for the most oppressed and marginalised. It will also provide a beacon for anyone who wishes to understand what is wrong with our society and to struggle towards making it a better one. --The Midlands Psychology Group

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Constable
• Date d'édition: 1996
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0094754004
• ISBN 13: 9780094754003
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 256
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible