Weathering the Storms: Psychotherapy for Psychosis

'In a series of fascinating supervisory case studies Jackson draws on Kleinian concepts and Scandinavian clinical experience to show how a psychotherapeutic approach can, through a combination of empathy and sound theory, stabilise, contain, integrate and tame the unnamable terrors and compulsions of psychosis. Jackson's courage, modesty and total integrity shine through.'- Jeremy Holmes MD, University of Exeter.

Table of Contents:
Preface -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Psychotic features in obsessive-compulsive neurosis: "Ada" -- Obsessional symptoms following adolescent psychosis: "Brenda" -- Obsessions in schizophrenia: "Alec" -- Paranoid schizophrenia—command hallucinations: "Brian" -- Hysterical psychosis: "Claudia" -- Anorexia, psychosis, and the question of sexual abuse: "Dorothy" -- Paranoid schizophrenia—space—time factors: "Conrad" -- Chronic paranoid schizophrenia—schizoid thinking: "Ellen" -- Paranoid violence: "Duncan" -- Schizophrenia—psychotherapy, termination, reparation: "Florence" -- Paranoid psychosis—delusional body image: "Elmer" -- Paranoid delusions—sealing-over and working through a psychotic transference: "Frank" -- Phobia, hysteria, psychosis: "Grace" -- Chronic schizophrenia—catatonic and spatial features: "George" -- Manic-depressive psychosis: "Harry" -- Vignettes -- Mostly theory -- Mostly practice -- Conclusions -- Characteristics of schizoid thinking -- Infancy research and the “right mind” -- The future—winds of change

About the Author :
Murray Jackson, a native of Australia, came to Britain in the 1950s to train at the Maudsley Hospital, where his interest in psychosomatic disorders and psychotic states led him to Jung's work in psychosis and training as an analytical psychologist. Further experience in child and adult psychiatry brought acquaintance with the work of Melanie Klein and to training in psychoanalysis. He was a Member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and a life Member of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Review :
'Despite significant advances in medical and social care, the inner experience of severe mental illness - the 'storms' of this book's title - remain as elusive as ever. In this unusual book Murray Jackson charts the deep waters of psychosis in a creative and convincing way. Jackson is a prophet who for three decades has kept the flame of psychoanalytic approaches to psychosis alive in the English speaking world... This work should be placed in the office of every acute psychiatric ward and Community Mental Health Team and on the essential reading list of every psychotherapist who seriously aspires to work with the psychiatrically ill.' - Jeremy Holmes MD, Consultant Psychotherapist, Department of Mental Health, University of Exeter.'Based on the author's vast clinical experience, Murray Jackson's new book provides exceptionally valuable keys to understanding and treating severely ill psychiatric patients. Problems of numerous patients with different kinds and phases of psychotic illness and the challenges inherent in their individual psychotherapy are described in a very clear, gradually deepening way, also taking notice of the treating context. I have rarely, if ever, read a book with as much practical value for psychoanalytically oriented individual psychotherapists working with this kind of patients, both with regard to their therapeutic work and to various teaching and learning purposes.' - Yrjo O. Alanen, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, University of Turku, Finland'Murray Jackson's unique pedagogical ability in integrating modern clinical psychiatry and psychoanalytic thinking opens a road for communication between the two disciplines without undue reductions in theoretical thinking.'- Johan Cullberg, Professor of Psychiatry, Stockholm, Sweden