A substantial fraction of the people around us suffer from personality disorders. To cope, they distort both their reality and ours. Their behavior can be baffling and puzzling, and worse, they often abuse those closest to them. The author presents a new and effective way for people to understand and recognize the three of these disorders that often lead to abusive behavior. Describing each using a single dynamic - an underlying motivation - rather than a list of behaviors is an easier way to grasp and deal with these disorders. He then describes the psychological defense mechanisms that stabilize the distorted world created by the disordered, and explains how substance abuse adds fuel to the fire of disordered behavior. he also offers the latest thinking on the prospects for improvement with treatment, and a realistic perspective on the likelihood that the disordered will choose this path.

This book proposes to open up the debate on mental disorders, to get people interested and talking, and to get them thinking. For example, what is schizophrenia? Why is it so common? Why does it affect human beings and not animals? What might this tell us about our mind and body, language and creativity, music and religion? What are the boundaries between mental disorder and 'normality'? Is there a relationship between mental disorder and genius? These are some of the difficult but important questions that this book confronts, with the overarching aim of exploring what mental disorders can teach us about human nature and the human condition. Dr Neel Burton qualified in neuroscience and medicine from the University of London and is a Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He is the the author of several books, including a prize-winning textbook of psychiatry and a prize-winning self-help book for people with schizophrenia. He lives and teaches in Oxford.

Why do some men become convinced—despite what doctors tell them—that their penises have, simply, disappeared. Why do people across the world become convinced that they are cursed to die on a particular date—and then do? Why do people in Malaysia suddenly “run amok”? In The Geography of Madness, acclaimed magazine writer Frank Bures investigates these and other “culture-bound” syndromes, tracing each seemingly baffling phenomenon to its source. It’s a fascinating, and at times rollicking, adventure that takes the reader around the world and deep into the oddities of the human psyche. What Bures uncovers along the way is a poignant and stirring story of the persistence of belief, fear, and hope.

Michel Foucault examines the archeology of madness in the West from 1500 to 1800 - from the late Middle Ages, when insanity was still considered part of everyday life and fools and lunatics walked the streets freely, to the time when such people began to be considered a threat, asylums were first built, and walls were erected between the "insane" and the rest of humanity.

This book argues that the experience of 'madness' is an integral part of what it is to be human, and that greater focus on subjective experiences can contribute to professional understandings and ways of helping those troubled by these experiences.

Explores the century-long controversy over the orgins of coral reefs, a debate that split the world of nineteenth-century science, looking at the diverse roles of Louis Agassiz, his son Alexander, and Charles Darwin and reflecting on how the search for the truth shed new light on the formation of Earth and its natural wonders.