Routledge Psychosis in the Family: The Journey of a Transpersonal Psychotherapist and Mother (The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy Series)

This is a book written not just by a professional transpersonal psychotherapist but by someone who has walked the heart-rending path and experienced the psychological trauma of loving someone in psychosis; psychosis which still remains the greatest taboo in society today, together with its implicit diagnosis of a lifelong sentence of medication and no cure. It is in the main a personal and moving narrative of a mother looking to help her son avoid such a lifelong sentence of medication whilst trying to research holistic resources and alternative approaches for treatment at the same time as negotiating the vagaries of the current mental health system. It is often a tale of despair and frustration, yet also gives a compassionate voice. Transpersonal and transgenerational psychotherapeutic insights back up the personal narrative. It includes an accessible inquiry into how unconscious forces influence our mind, our bodies and the entire family system. Its hypothesis is that if we cannot understand our own unconscious responses how can we understand those of our loved ones in psychotic episodes? Review "This amazingly vivid account grips the attention from start to finish, evoking poignantly what so many have experienced: the sheer excruciating, unfathomable, ungraspability of the experience and nature of psychosis on any single model. The devastation wrought by the inadequacies and bureaucratic closedness of our mental care systems is painfully articulated, yet it is not anti-psychiatric, and one of the heroes is a psychiatrist. Familial, and intergenerational, fault lines are agonisingly evoked, yet without going down the 'schizophrenogenic family' model. This is a book full of pain, full of madness, yet full of sanity. Psychotherapy is affirmed, but does not get off scot-free either! It is both a clarion call about the failures of our services, yet an awesome message of hope and overcoming!'"--Heward Wilkinson, UKCP Fellow, Chair of UKCP Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy Section, Integrative Psychotherapist, Psychiatric Nurse, and author of The Muse as Therapist "I recommend this book as a moving account of a woman's struggle to get help for a son suffering from psychosis. It vividly portrays the problems faced as families try to cope with mental illness, against a background of confusion and sometimes indifference amongst mental health professionals."--Professor Richard Bentall, author of Madness Explained About the Author Janet C Love