What is Madness? - Hardcover

Leader, Darian

4.1

456 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0241144884 ISBN 13: 9780241144886

Publisher: Hamish Hamilton, 2011

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Madness, in our culture, is defined by visibility. From the popular press to TV soaps and films, the depiction of madness always borders on the extreme: violent outbursts, fits, hallucinations.

But what if madness is not exactly what we think it to be? What if it is the rule rather than the exception? And what if its defining features are not visible and dramatic but, on the contrary, highly discreet, shared by average citizens who will never come to psychiatric attention? What if, in other words, there is a difference between being mad and going mad?

Beginning and ending with the case of Harold Shipman - a mass-murderer so apparently 'normal' that some of his patients said they would still be treated by him even after his conviction - psychoanalyst Darian Leader explores the idea of discreet madness, and argues that it is only through revising our concept of what madness is that we will have the tools to help those who have gone mad to rebuild their lives.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

In this important, lucid book, psychoanalyst asks us revise the concept of madness . . . Leader is as much a philosopher as a psychoanalyst and his ideas are engrossing and enlightening (Metro)

Wonderful (Bookseller)

The mad . . . have been segregated and often confined; for fear, perhaps, that they will contaminate the rest of us. But as Darain Leader brilliantly shows, things are never so simple (Hanif Kureshi Independent)

What is Madness? is a humane and timely book (New Statesman)

[Says] something that very much needs to be said (Irish Times)

Leader, psychoanalyst and witty, probing writer, explores the long history of misunderstanding and mistreatment that shaped our views of mental distress. Consult him for a myth-busting diagnosis of the method in our madness (Independent)

About the Author:

Darian Leader is a British psychoanalyst and the author of Introducing Lacan, Why do Women Write More Letters Than They Post?, Promises Lovers Make When It Gets Late, Freud's Footnotes, Stealing the Mona Lisa, Why do People Get Ill, co-written with David Corfield, The New Black, What Is Madness, Strictly Bipolar and Hands. He practises psychoanalysis in London, and he is a member of the College of Psychoanalysts and a founding member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.