Our Necessary Shadow: The Nature and Meaning of Psychiatry

Product Description

Psychiatry is a battleground, criticised on the one hand as an instrument of social control, while on the other as offering lasting solutions to mental illness. Which of these contrasting positions should we believe? What is the truth about psychiatry?

In this deeply thoughtful, descriptive and sympathetic book, psychiatry professor Tom Burns explains it in full. He reviews psychiatry's historical development, lays out the arguments over treatment, discusses where it helps, and where it is imperfect. Mental illnesses, he shows, are intimately tied to what makes us human, and the drive to relieve them is even more human. Psychiatry, for all its flaws, represents our best impulses. It is our necessary shadow.

'Lucid, humane, well-balanced . . . has honesty and integrity.' Will Self, Guardian

'Makes a powerful case.' Financial Times

'Superbly clear.' Sunday Times

'He is calm, sympathetic, willing to listen and eager to understand . . . Just the person you would like to be in charge of your care.' The Times

'Wise, erudite . . . A humane, tempered view.' PsycCritiques