With decades of experience, Vanheule explores the roots of psychosis, building a framework for understanding and treatment.
How new thinking about psychosis can chart a positive way forward.
In a book first published in Belgium in 2021, Vanheule, a professor of psychoanalysis and clinical psychology, combines a long history of treatment of patients suffering from psychosis with a firm grasp of the current research on the subject. About 15% of the population will have a psychotic experience at some time, notes the author, although only a small proportion will progress into a condition of full-blown psychosis. Psychosis involves a loss of contact with reality, which usually starts in late adolescence and involves hallucinations, hearing voices, and feelings of paranoia or grandiosity. Vanheule discusses the case of a patient who engaged in complex, argumentative conversations with an imaginary companion; another was convinced that inanimate objects were speaking to him. The author investigates the way that psychotic patients use language, which can sometimes reveal the trauma or issue that triggered the psychological break. Antipsychotic drugs can help in some circumstances, but the most valuable tool is a therapist willing to take the time to build an empathetic relationship. Some psychotics show a strong creative streak, which should be encouraged as a means of expression. The therapeutic goal is to provide a sense of connectedness that can guide the sufferer back to reality. Vanheule believes that most psychotics are deeply confused, caught between clashing images of the world. Sometimes the best option is to keep the condition within manageable limits rather than search for a complete cure. The author has had considerable success with his treatment ideas, but he emphasizes that “there are no miracle remedies for treating psychosis.” Still, he provides useful information for sufferers and those who care for them, laid out in an articulate, sympathetic manner.
With decades of experience, Vanheule explores the roots of psychosis, building a framework for understanding and treatment.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781635424423
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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