Saints and Madmen: Psychiatry Opens Its Doors to Religion - Hardcover

Shorto, Russell

3.73

74 ratings by Goodreads

9780805059021: Saints and Madmen: Psychiatry Opens Its Doors to Religion

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805059024 ISBN 13: 9780805059021

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., 1999

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What is the boundary between psychosis and religious experience? Psychiatrists have only recently acknowledged the role that spirituality plays in their patients' worlds, adding a new category-"the religious or spiritual problem"-to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1994. Some psychiatrists now specialize in treating the spiritually disturbed, yielding case studies of religious ideation worthy of Oliver Sacks. Journalist Russell Shorto investigates this new science of the soul, examining cutting-edge issues of chemistry and consciousness, and whether psycho-pharmacology has a spiritual component. At the same time, he explores curious byways of the phenomenon such as "Christian psychiatry" and alien abduction, and follows a clergyman who goes "with" the spiritually disturbed on their psychotic journeys. In this moving and impeccably researched narrative, he brings to life two distinct and provocative-and now intertwined-efforts to probe the deepest meaning of human existence.

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Review:

Many people who experience psychotic episodes have extreme spiritual encounters: for one person, it may be a sense of a tree's spirit speaking its truth aloud; for others, it could be the sensation of energy beaming from their bodies and communicating with dolphins on a far-off coast. Modern psychiatry usually categorizes these visions as evidence of psychosis, to be treated with antipsychotic medication. But what if these visions were actually extensions of legitimate spiritual encounters or glimpses into the deeper dimensions of the soul?

Author Russell Shorto (Gospel Truth) dares to ask these questions. He even offers evidence of a new movement in psychiatry, in which established doctors are assuming a more holistic approach to psychotic episodes and taking the patient's soul into account. This is not a cavalier dismissal of all that can be gained from appropriate diagnoses of (and medications for) mental illness; rather, it is an impressively researched argument for opening up to the idea of spiritual visions. Citing extensive research and numerous case studies, Shorto helps readers consider the possibility that grandiose spiritual visions aren't necessarily symptoms of mental illness. --Gail Hudson

About the Author:

Russell Shorto is the author of Gospel Truth: The New Image of Jesus Emerging from Science and History. He has written for GQ, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine and lives in Putnam Valley, New York.

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