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The paranoid
Book by Swanson, D.W.
523 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1970
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July 2, 2024
A fascinating, outdated psychiatry textbook, even more fascinating as a product of its time (1971) in relation to today. What we find, slowly reading through this book like Phd. students who no doubt once read this at impressive schools, we discover the shifts and divisions in mental health treatment over the past fifty plus years.
To start, the authors were theorists of their time. In other words, nearly everything was the result of suppressed homosexual desires. Now considering the year, with the drastic disapproval of such instincts, it makes sense that many people experiencing homosexual attraction would become paranoid, seeking ways to disregard such desires. Some blamed them on others, on men (nearly everything in the book deals with male psychopathology) constantly following them, and forcing the paranoid to notice them, and find himself unable to not notice them back. Yes, everything--everything!--as the smudged homosexual component as far as the doctors are concerned. Times have changed of course--and let's admit for the better in this instance both socially and psychologically, as such overbearing avoidance has usually morphed into present day acceptence of who we and other people are.
Now for all of this, there is a significantly valuable lesson to be learned that has since been discarded in modern psychiatric practice, where everyone suffers from their own unique syndrome, a mental condition used as an excuse to explain away selfishness, laziness, nervousness, anxiety, and just a general negative outlook. Here, back then, a lot of symptoms were lumped together as factions of a much larger problem. Whereas then paranoia explained a great deal about behavior, from unfocused anger, irrational blame, refusal to accept responsibility for one's actions and failures, and a variety of other projective and desperate reconsiderations of reality used to justify behavior, now we are trapped in a world where evading responsibility is truly possible, because we are all potential victims, and we all have excuses for being selfish; for being assholes. This is a true degeneration of mental health, this crutch people lean on to claim that nothing we do wrong is really our fault.
An invaluable reference and history book, there is a great deal anyone could learn by reading through the lessons, and seeing upon reflection the old cliche: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
To start, the authors were theorists of their time. In other words, nearly everything was the result of suppressed homosexual desires. Now considering the year, with the drastic disapproval of such instincts, it makes sense that many people experiencing homosexual attraction would become paranoid, seeking ways to disregard such desires. Some blamed them on others, on men (nearly everything in the book deals with male psychopathology) constantly following them, and forcing the paranoid to notice them, and find himself unable to not notice them back. Yes, everything--everything!--as the smudged homosexual component as far as the doctors are concerned. Times have changed of course--and let's admit for the better in this instance both socially and psychologically, as such overbearing avoidance has usually morphed into present day acceptence of who we and other people are.
Now for all of this, there is a significantly valuable lesson to be learned that has since been discarded in modern psychiatric practice, where everyone suffers from their own unique syndrome, a mental condition used as an excuse to explain away selfishness, laziness, nervousness, anxiety, and just a general negative outlook. Here, back then, a lot of symptoms were lumped together as factions of a much larger problem. Whereas then paranoia explained a great deal about behavior, from unfocused anger, irrational blame, refusal to accept responsibility for one's actions and failures, and a variety of other projective and desperate reconsiderations of reality used to justify behavior, now we are trapped in a world where evading responsibility is truly possible, because we are all potential victims, and we all have excuses for being selfish; for being assholes. This is a true degeneration of mental health, this crutch people lean on to claim that nothing we do wrong is really our fault.
An invaluable reference and history book, there is a great deal anyone could learn by reading through the lessons, and seeing upon reflection the old cliche: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Displaying 1 of 1 review