Double Bind [Paperback]

Linn Cohen-Cole (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 19, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0970646909 | ISBN-13: 978-0970646903

Double Bind is a mystery about a psychiatrist who disappears.

It is also the oddest vehicle to begin this country's second abolition movement - this time against a very modern form of institutionalized slavery.

Psychiatry maximally controls and is routinely committing violent abuses - in the form of restraint and seclusion - not against slaves but against legally-inferior and fully-entrapped patients,.

In an unforgettable book which will delight mystery readers and be a field day for psychological mystery lovers, the author throws the gauntlet down to American psychiatrists. This group has yet to disown, much less condemn practices which stand as one of the last forms of legalized abuse in the Western world.

Whether the reader prefers the funny, disturbing right-brain mystery or the appended left-brain non-fiction article, Double Bind convincingly introduces Psychiatry as full-fledged Perpetrator. How is it possible, the book asks, for a profession of self-proclaimed "healers", righteously critical of violence in every other form, to be routinely damaging (by a conservative estimate) 1000 of its already compromised, help-seeking patients a day?

Welcome to an exciting story and a unique intellectual ride. Welcome to a new and undeniable voice on behalf of psychiatry's helpless patients.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...an engaging mystery that justifiably confronts ... psychiatry ... enlightening and thought provoking ... fun to read ... important impact in ... theory and practice ... -- clinical psychologist, private practice 1999

Very interesting and very important. The issue ... is extremely valid ... a very original way of dealing with it. -- psychiatrist, institute leader 1996

amazing work ... very original novel -- psychologist, theorist, writer 1999

About the Author

Linn Cohen-Cole resides in Georgia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Shame the Devil Pr (December 19, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0970646909
• ISBN-13: 978-0970646903
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,951,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I truly loved this book!, December 27, 2001

By 

Monika Parikh (New Jersey, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Double Bind (Paperback)

Double Bind is an absolutely captivating mystery with a unique plot and an imaginative, yet realistic, set of characters. At the same time, Cohen-Cole manages to tackle and bring to light a terrible, violent "professional" practice that breaks, rather than heals, psychiatric patients. By making public the practice of restraint and seclusion, through such an absorbing novel, the author has already begun the movement towards the eradication of this practice.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book that breaks the silence on practices that traumatize!, June 24, 2005

By 

Arden B. Beyer "Licensed Psychologist" (New Jersey, USA!!!) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Double Bind (Paperback)

Double Bind adds credence to the concerns that many professionals within the field of "mental health," in general, have. The problem, as explicated by Cohen-Cole, of neurophysiological degeneration that occurs as a consequence of the use of seclusion and restraints is, in itself, telling, and indicates that such practices are, at best, annihilative of clients' ego structures. One need only consider more subtle practices that are also applied to coerce patients toward compliance to come to grips with the gravity of this issue and to more expeditiously move toward the cessation of the use of restraints and seclusion, used, at best, as a punitive measure. Dr. Kernberg, himself, could be consulted in this matter, as it is his practice par excellence, most apparently, to aim toward "breaking" hospitalized patients with intent to thereafter much more facilely manipulate and control them without regard for their welfare or psychological well-being.