The Origins of Unhappiness

The Origins of Unhappiness PDF

Author: David Smail

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-05-08

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0429907400

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It is the main argument of this book that emotional and psychological distress is often brought about through the operation of social-environmental powers which have their origin at a considerable distance from those ultimately subjected to them. On the whole, psychology has concerned itself very little with the field of power which stretches beyond our immediate relations with each other, and this has led to serious limitations on the explanatory power of the theories it has produced. To illustrate this, typical cases of patient distress in the 1980s are examined. The decade when the right-wing of politics proclaimed there was no such thing as society gave rise to psychological distress across social classes, as long-standing societal institutions were dismantled. This is as much a work of sociology, politics, and philosophy, as it is of psychology. Fundamentals of an environmental understanding of distress are outlined. A person is the interaction of a body with the environment.

The Origins of Unhappiness

The Origins of Unhappiness PDF

Author: David Smail

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780094793408

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Through his examination of how visible and invisible social power - institutions, politics, the Establishment - wields an influence over our lives often beyond our immediate control, Smail leads us to a clear understanding of distress.'

Power, Interest and Psychology

Power, Interest and Psychology PDF

Author: David John Smail

Publisher: Pccs Books

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13:

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Smail establishes a compelling framework that makes sense of our emotional distress as the outcome of contextual, social pressures.

Explaining Unhappiness

Explaining Unhappiness PDF

Author: Peter Spinogatti

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2010-10-07

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 1450254411

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Serious books inevitably start with an instigating question, and the question that Explaining Unhappiness answers is this: What are you afraid would happen if you weren’t unhappy? Why? Because this is the question that everybody asks all their lives, without ever fully realizing it. We are deeply engaged in the assumptions contained within it. What are we assuming when we ask that question? First, we’re suggesting that it is possible to be happy regardless of the present circumstances in which we find ourselves—that unhappiness doesn’t just happen, but that it may be self-imposed. Further, this chosen state may have less to do with what is happening in the present and more to do with warding off a fearfully anticipated future. Finally, we must also believe that, somehow, unhappiness pays off. We are forced to conclude, then, that we value unhappiness. Explaining Unhappiness was written for anyone who has come to realize that “realizing your potential” and “increasing your coping skills” have become old chestnuts that never really gave you what you really wanted—namely, a definitive answer as to why you need to believe that something is wrong with you.

How to Survive Without Psychotherapy

How to Survive Without Psychotherapy PDF

Author: David Smail

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-05-08

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0429914644

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This book is directly aimed at sufferers of mental distress. The book's aim is to remove from sufferers the burden of 'fault' for their pain and to demystify some of the practices that surround the 'treatment' of mental illness. It is not exactly a self-help book because it is a false claim of any 'treatment' of mental illness that 'cure' can be brought about by exercise of will. Much of what causes mental distress is lack of power and resource, outside the control of the sufferer. Surviving without psychotherapy involves the appreciation of several things. First, the limited nature of therapeutic assistance - whilst clarification and support may help the sufferer understand his/her predicament and encourage the use of what resources the sufferer has, therapy cannot change the distal root causes of distress. Second, that only socio-political solutions can address some of the most powerful causes of distress, e.g., redundancy, housing and poverty. In sounding a cautionary note about psychoanalysis, Smail observes that mental distress is far more about money than sex.

Manufacturing Depression

Manufacturing Depression PDF

Author: Gary Greenberg

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-02-02

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 9781416570080

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Am I depressed or just unhappy? In the last two decades, antidepressants have become staples of our medicine cabinets—doctors now write 120 million prescriptions annually, at a cost of more than 10 billion dollars. At the same time, depression rates have skyrocketed; twenty percent of Americans are now expected to suffer from it during their lives. Doctors, and drug companies, claim that this convergence is a public health triumph: the recognition and treatment of an under-diagnosed illness. Gary Greenberg, a practicing therapist and longtime depressive, raises a more disturbing possibility: that the disease has been manufactured to suit (and sell) the cure. Greenberg draws on sources ranging from the Bible to current medical journals to show how the idea that unhappiness is an illness has been packaged and sold by brilliant scientists and shrewd marketing experts—and why it has been so successful. Part memoir, part intellectual history, part exposé—including a vivid chronicle of his participation in a clinical antidepressant trial—Manufacturing Depression is an incisive look at an epidemic that has changed the way we have come to think of ourselves.

Taking Care

Taking Care PDF

Author: David Smail

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-05-08

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0429919778

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Taking Care established the author as an important social and political analyst whose background happened to be in clinical psychology. In this work the author develops the analysis of mental illness, and psychology in general, in the contexts of society, power and interest. People's experience is embodied in the world in which they exist. Notwithstanding the claims of some, psychology cannot, in the same way that magic cannot, change the nature of that experience fundamentally. At best, psychotherapy might provide a degree of understanding about that limitation. The historical relationship between psychology and magic is examined. The socio-political and economic structures of the society in which we live have the greatest influence on mental health, as on many other matters. Therefore, the individuation of focus in psychology on personal relationships, happiness, and sexuality can significantly miss the point. We need to develop political and social structures that 'take care' of people, to enable them to have meaningful 'public' lives.

Illusion and Reality

Illusion and Reality PDF

Author: David Smail

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-05-08

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 0429914733

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This work challenges the notion that anxiety and depression amount to a mental illness denoting that something is wrong with the individual sufferer. Instead, anxiety and depression are described as perfectly rational responses to difficulties in the sufferer's world, experienced subjectively by that person. An essential contrast is drawn between objective conceptions of normality (what reality ought to be as per commercial and other objectifying sources) and the reality of the individual's subjective experience of the world (abuse, unemployment, and so on). Chapters include tackling the myth of normality; examining shyness; and analysing the way in which assumptions behind the use of language can foster anxiety and depression. The book's primary purpose is to explain the meaning of anxiety as experienced by the sufferer. These insights also lead to a view, by way of secondary purpose, that the role of the therapist is not in 'curing' the individual, but rather to negotiate demystification and to provide insight into the effects of the problems in the sufferer's world, based on the sufferer and the therapist's shared subjective understanding.

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