Customer Reviews

Far Side of Madness

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As someone who has passed through a serious "manic" crisis and consider it to be the most important, positive, life-changing event of my life I consider this book to be essential reading for anyone who has been diagnosed as mentally ill (schizophrenia, bi-polar, etc...). John Weir Perry's detailed account of the phases of "madness" one goes through on the way to healing mirrored my own in surprising detail. But perhaps most importantly, his methodology for treating individuals during their crisis is exactly the kind of treatment I would have hoped for, but never recieved. My own ability to "treat" myself without a psychiatrist probably saved my life, however, I know there are millions of people out there suffering needlessly due to the ignorance of the psychiatric profession, which Perry so eloquently describes.

The actual author of this text is John Weir Perry. John Beebe wrote the introduction. Anyway, this book is an excellent expose on the language of the psyche and how it produces symbolic images that are part of the healing process. Symbolic and abstract forms do not relate well to concrete thinkers, but the psyche keeps producing these images anyway. For those who who can and prefer to work with the symbolic life, there might be more here in this book than someone else's madness. This book is a good illustration of the symbolic healing process.

I first read this book when it was published in 1974 and was presented to me by the author, whom I was privileged to know for many years.Dr. Perry describes his (a Jungian analyst's) compassionate view of young men and women in turmoil because of a psychotic episode and his launching of an innovative treatment program for these states of mind. The strongest point of the book is the author's obvious sincerety and true search for more integrative treatment of first episode psychosis. What I object to is the additon of John Beebe,MD as a 2nd author in this (2nd) edition,because he had nothing to do with the writing of the book and, to my knowledge, was never a close associate of Dr. Perry in this important work on schizophrenia/psychosis. Instead, Dr. Beebe adds a 'preface',written several years after Dr. Perry's death, which appears to be more of a criticism of the original author than an introduction to his work. It adds very little to the readers' appreciation of the high caliber of Dr. Perry's insights and creative thinking. I highly recommend this book to therapists, anyone undergoing or having undergone the turbulence of psychosis and everyone interested in analytical psychology and its possible practical applications even, or especially, today.