Product Description

Have you ever thought you were going mad? Ever questioned your sanity? Hated yourself so much that you wanted to end it all? Felt your life crippled by panic? Lost control over your own mind? This ground-breaking book addresses many people's unspoken concerns about mental illness, and the associated stigma. It questions the mainstream arguments, instead placing consciousness, thoughts, emotions and experiences as the creators of psychological distress and dis-ease states. The authors demystify the psychiatric labels, presenting them as understandable responses that are experienced as a result of traumatic or difficult life situations. Their case studies, drawn from their clinical experience, vividly describe the journey into madness, clearly documenting what happens and what doesn't in states such as schizophrenia, mania, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and panic attacks. Their aim is to make madness understandable and inseparable from the experience of being human. This vital view firmly puts the lifeforce and soul back into the healing process where it belongs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #214014 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

About the Author
Aine Tubridy M.D. a psychotherapist, and Michael Corry M.D. a psychiatrist, are practising and living in Ireland.

Customer Reviews

A must for personal growth and development
Drs. Michael Corry and Aine Tubridy have taken the study of mental turmoil and mental illness firmly into the twenty first century and so early into the century at that. The book give an astonishing, awesome and comprehensive understanding of all mental and personal turmoil as well as mental illness. It brings together state of the art thinking from many disciplines. It is written in a very readable format. The book can be read as well as studied. As such it is accessible to the lay person as well as the medics and academics. It has certainly provided me with an understanding of the events, struggles and turmoils of my life to date. It gives me a framework for further personal growth and development. It helps me to make sense of my life and how it should develop from here on in. The novel style introduction of real 'clients' and 'patients' is unique but not as unique as the fictional panel of experts, which are used to give the reader the perspective form the various medical and personal development disciplines. This makes it a very good read. More than anything the contribution of Drs. Corry and Tubridy go a long way to removing the fear surrounding mental illness (either in oneself or others). It helps remove the stigma from mental illness through explaining it well and from all perspectives. By yielding an understanding it will being piece to those encountering mental illness. It will be of great use to practitioners in all fields. I am thinking that most probably this will become a text book and the source of hypothesis for much of this centuries research into mental illness. It pushes the limits and for this the authors are to be congratulated. I saw the book criticised by a prominent psychiatrist in Dublin. Having noted that criticism and having read the book, I can only say that the critic is blinkered and bound in the narrowness of her own discipline. The book invites expansiveness and openess in out thinking on the subject. Some are able to go there and some are not. For who are, Drs. Corry and Tubridy will lead them to a new understanding of themselves and todays world. I dont have to say that I highly recommend it to a wide readership - this is a book for everyone.
MWC - Dublin - 21 November 2001

wonderful, simple terms, educational, holistic
Going Mad is a wonderful book looking into mental illness and making simple sense of it. the authors do not try and seperate mental illness from being human. they explain mental illness as it being a messenger for rebalance and help not as a disease. it allows people, who may have no prior knowledge of mental illness to understand how and why people may behave as they do when they are unwell. the book is ideal for those who may have friends or relations suffering panic attacks, schizophrenia, depression, mania, paranoia or any other emotional upset. It does a fantastic job of breaking down the stigma that is attached to people suffering from an emotional trauma. Physical illnesses come with no such stigma - why should psychological ones. a panel of experts put forward their view on each topic, providing the reader with a holistic view of all illnesses and with an array of different treatments to suit everyone. the authors also take a spiritual slant, by looking at chakras - energy centres in the body, again well explained for those who have never heard of chakras before! well done for a great book, a lot more educational than many psychology / spiritual books out there.

Clears up many misunderstandings
This book, "Going Mad" really surprised me as it explains about the different types of mental illness (mania, schizophrenia and depression) yet in a simple way so it is very easy to understand.

I am actually a college student studying psychology. In my first year, it really helped me understand mental illness, not just from a medical point of view but also from the view of people suffering from a mental illness. It gives their side of things and puts depression for example, into perspective. It normalizes it. I can see that if I went through what they experienced eg: the loss of a loved one, that I too could easily get depressed.

After my read, I bought another copy of the book for a friend of mine who said she was suffering from depression and was put on Prozac by her doctor. After reading it, she and her family realized that what she was suffering from was panic attacks and it was those attacks, that were causing her sadness/ depression. She soon changed doctor and got treated for panic attacks and now is doing great and off the medication! So this book would be a great read, not only for people suffering from a "mental Illness" but also for their family/ friends as it will help them understand where the person with "mental illness" is coming from and clear up any misunderstandings. So in all a great book!