The Meaning of Madness (Ataraxia)

This really is an excellent book, almost as good as volume 2. The author tells some extremely important home truths about how psychology/psychiatry is used to punish political prisoners and to stigmatise people who does not fit in, in many societies, and compares this with other cultures that don’t have such hangups about patterns of behaviour. Very much worth the read, except that...paradoxically, this book also perpetuates 1 major fallacy that I must beg the ebook publishers to correct immediately, and that is the dishonest and covert aggressive use of the term “unconscious” which is wholly incorrect. I don’t care that most authors (but not all, I can assure you) are gaslighting readers in this way. Nor would I care if the dictionary changed every copy to include a definition that encompassed the fallacy. We have had that before in Australia. It was shameful and thankfully reported in the press. So whatever fudged definition or “consensus” is available, it as as reliable as the diagnoses of schizophrenia by the hospitals you will read about in this book (worth buying for those few pages alone. You will laugh out loud but then break down into sobbing, at first lol at how brain dead psych ward staff and doctors are, and then weep bitterly at how many innocent and healthy people have been detained and forced onto meds when nothing was wrong with them, meds that take decades off lives for reasons you will also read if you buy this book!Anyway, my beef is with the Freud chart and constant reference to “unconscious.” I studied psychology in medical school before transferring into law school. The big taunte in medical school by the professors in our first class on Freud, was that If anyone said unconscious instead of subconscious, they would be mocked in front of the whole class. The lecturer would say “unconscious is when you are asleep, (insert student name)” and would give a condescending laugh. “It’s subconscious, because it is BELOW the level of consciousness.”This mockery was repeated at student expense so many times I never forgot that “unconscious means you’re alseep.” All my notes from class still have the schema drawn in this book but with the correct label - subconscious not unconscious. Taking it back to first principles, even if you didn’t learn this before the deception was introduced, you can still draw out the correct terminology which I do for you below.Everyone agrees we still have a conscious mind and that consciousness suggests awareness. Consciousness is the awareness that we exist. To be conscious of a fact means one is aware of it.. By adding prefix “un” we negate the conscious mind from being aware to NOT being aware. Just like happy becomes unhappy meaning we are no longer happy. We may not be sad but we are not happy when we add prefix “un.” In like manner, adding un to conscious makes unconscious, meaning we negated awareness, so we are NOT aware. Whatever else we might be, if we are unconscious we are not aware or awake.Let’s say we sell out and let them hijack the English language and the science behind the terminology, and go with their agenda driven dishonest rewriting of history and the language. We would according to this and most other publications have a conscious mind when awake as labelled and drawn, and an unconscious mind at the same time, labelled beneath it. So we would literally have an aware mind and a not-aware mind or asleep mind at the same time. BUT when we fall asleep, or faint or black out, that conscious mind label temporarily loses consciousness and so it must become “unconscious”. There is no other choice. If you are asleep you are unconscious in terms of the conscious mind.Then we go to the second label which I am challenging as a fraud and repugnant to any standard of honesty and decency. It says “unconscious”. So you were asleep, your conscious mind is unconscious, ok. Follow me here. And your unconscious mind is already unconscious as per this book’s terminology. (They are the same word. But no would one dare tell you that the unconsciousness of the conscious mind is the same as the unconsciousness of the unconscious mind! They are 2 different parts of the mind with very different functions).We can’t be conscious (awake/aware) & unconscious (asleep) at the same time, as the diagram and book purport. That is why the part of the mind which is aware but not asleep is not the negated conscious mind, but it is the SUBconscious mind coz it is aware and conscious & recording a lot more input data than the conscious mind. But we are not actively aware of its processing, until just like the invisible wind, you see it move in a way that you know it is there because you can see it working, like when your SUBconscious tells your unconscious mind to wake up at the alarm ringing!In conclusion: when I am awake, I am conscious AND subconscious. When I am asleep, I am unconscious & subconscious. I am never unconscious & unconscious ! You too!

Need Burton is a compassionate genius. As a diagnosed bipolar 1 I found encouraging hypothesis and groundbreaking insights. I feel I have a friend here, not just a cold and swift doctor who is used to just diagnosing patients. Neel is a great writer and anyone who has been diagnosed will find this most useful and informative. Along the lines of Peter Breggins work. Bravo!

I'm in the category of people the author describes as unlikely to be selected in the evolutionary gene pool (paraphrased). Suicide, self-harm, bipolar, chronic depression, severe anxiety/agoraphobia, ADD, substance abuse - all exist in myself and/or next of kin. Over 40 years I've met with psych professionals in North America, Germany, and the UK, yet I'd forgotten an important input - history.The author discusses how (or even IF) a mental/mood "disorder" was diagnosed and treated historically. He uses references from the Ancient Greeks, mythology (including religions), and traditional cultures. Quoting mythical sources originally put me off, but Mr. Burton is an equal opportunity author. He goes on to quote from diverse sources.He gently reminded me that the ancients didn't see mental disturbances as medical problems, nor do the traditional cultures. It was/is a soul disturbance first. Good point. When did I get the message that SSRI antidepressants solved an identifiable serotonin deficiency? I've no idea. Thanks for reminding me how mistaken this is likely to be. While I know I needed some short term help over some life road bumps (more like mountains), there was no need to assume that help should be permanent.I agree that the Western psychiatric establishment has created an epidemic of Western mood disorders to be treated by Western Big Pharma, corrupt as it is. I couldn't agree more. On followup visits in 2017, a psychiatrist in Germany asked me, "How's your addiction today?". As shocking as this was to hear for the first time, I must admit it's true. American psychiatrists diagnosed me and my loved ones, then proceeded to convince us we must take meds to be "normal". And yet, it's not accurate. Not for the rest of our lives.(He doesn't say this directly. I applied the book's content to my personal experience and arrived at this conclusion.)He writes in an accessible manner, but over my lifetime I've educated myself. The terms he uses were completely familiar to me. Nothing was too technical. Maybe this is not the case for every reader, but if you're reading this book you should get familiar with the lingo. It may save your life, or at least reduce unnecessary suffering.Depression, anxiety, bipolar, narcissism, schizotypal - all are a consequence of being human. Some are even common in very creative and successful people. Historically, medicines weren't thrown at people suffering with them. Instead, people were encouraged to talk about their troubles with family and friends. Get to the cause of the soul's discomfort. Feel heard. Validated. Better.As I read these words, it dawned on me that I was in this group. I felt ignored. Unvalidated. Perhaps I am too reliant on a quick fix with dangerous meds. Well said. While some people may not be ready to hear this message, I heard it loud and clear. It helped me. Immediately.I enjoyed this book so much I will read the rest of Mr. Burton's books, even those outside the Ataraxia series. If he practiced in the States, I'd go shake his hand.My gratitude abounds.

As I have been diagnosed with epilepsy and depression, and I attempted suicide in my youth, I found this book offered a good overview of my own problems. My primary complaint: for the general public the author employed words that were a bit too aristocratic for the average reader in sentences in which the grammar was not so good.

This is the kind of book that will stay with you and have you arguing with yourself (and maybe others?). The revolutionary ideas it puts forth are neither touted as right or wrong, but simply recorded from excellent minds for one to think about and question what we actually believe.

Very readable and informative. A fascinating look at mental heath. I look forward to reading the other books in this series.

Dr. Burton is a wonderful writer and "The Meaning of Madness" is educational and informative. As someone who has some personal experience with mental illness I highly recommend this wonderful book.

Interesting but useless knowledge in this book. Kind of just ran on and on, about details of each mental disorder

Detailed information about few mental disorders that explains them in an understandable language. Very happy for the purchase and keep forward for the second book.

I bought this after reading Neel Burton's The Art of Failure. Quite a lot of material is duplicated in these books, as if simply cut and pasted from one to the other. A shame, as he has some interesting things to say.

I came upon this book quite by chance. I had been sent a recommendation by Amazon for his book Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions. When I started doing some research, I discovered that it was the third book of five in a series called Ataraxia. This is a Greek term I had never heard of but means ‘lack of disturbance or trouble’.Now some readers may know that I promote as a people-profiling tool, the 7MTF. This tool is based on the Humm-Wadsworth system which turn was based on a model developed by Rosanoff in the early 1900s. The Rosanoff model is based on two concepts: we are all slightly mad and that our temperament is based on our positions on five spectra of common mental illnesses. So when I discovered that Burton’s first book in the series is The Meaning of Madness I thought to myself I have to begin at the beginning.Dr Neel Burton is a psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine-lover who lives and teaches in Oxford, England. Dr Neel Burton is a psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine-lover who lives and teaches in Oxford, England. He is a Fellow of Green-Templeton College in the University of Oxford and as won various literary awards particularly as a writer for the younger generation. He has a clear, simple style and is able to immerse you lightly in some pretty heavy stuff.The book does a good job of explaining the various forms of madness: schizophrenia, depression, bi-polar disorder, anxiety, suicide and self-harm. He writes from the perspective of an intelligent yet sceptical healer and I confess I liked his style. He makes some very interesting observations about how social ‘norms’ can affect mental illness.For example, self-harm which almost reached plague proportions among teen-age girls in the UK is unknown in Ghana. Similarly post-natal depression is unknown in the Punjabi culture. During the time of Princess Diana bulimia became increasingly common among teen-age girls but after her death started to disappear.He covers a wide range of topics and his philosophic explanations of the work of Freud, Jung, and the existentialist writer such as Sartre on death and the secrets to a good life were particularly relevant to someone soon to celebrate his 77th birthday.I also liked his analysis of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). I think it is fair to say he has fairly critical view. I was particularly struck by his observation that two-thirds the experts who helped to compile the DSM had a link to a drug company. DSM-5 has often been criticised for the expansion of diagnostic criteria that has increased the number of “mentally ill” individuals and/or pathologized “normal” behaviour. In turn Big Pharma has developed new ranges of medications for which the evidence of remedy is let us say weak. Burton is definitely in the ‘critical’ camp and further convinced a sceptic like myself.