Despite the many ways in which the so-called psychoses can become manifest, they are ultimately human events arising out of human contexts. As such, they can be understood in an intersubjective manner, removing the stigmatizing boundary between madness and sanity. Utilizing the post-Cartesian psychoanalytic approach of phenomenological contextualism, as well as almost 50 years of clinical experience, George Atwood presents detailed case studies depicting individuals in crisis and the successes and failures that occurred in their treatment. Topics range from depression to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder to dreams, dissociative states to suicidality. Throughout is an emphasis on the underlying essence of humanity demonstrated in even the most extreme cases of psychological and emotional disturbance, and both the surprising highs and tragic lows of the search for the inner truth of a life that of the analyst as well as the patient.

Psychotherapy Is a Human Science. Exploring the Abyss of Madness. Philosophy and Psychotherapy. Dreams and Delusions. The Unbearable and the Unsayable. The Tragedy of Self-destruction. The Dark Sun of Melancholia. What is a Ghost? Madness and Genius in Post-Cartesian Philosophy: A Distant Mirror.

George E. Atwood, Ph.D., is Professor of Clinical Psychology at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, USA. He is the author and co-author of numerous books, including Contexts of Being (Analytic Press, 1992), Faces in a Cloud (Jason Aronson, 1993), The Intersubjective Perspective (Jason Aronson, 1994), Working Intersubjectively (Analytic Press, 1997), and Worlds of Experience (Basic Books, 2002).