General Psychopathology

Rating:
Summary: I still like this book.
Review: People who learned to diagram sentences and outline thoughts when they were in school might be interested in how this book is organized around, in, and through an outline. Picking any particular topic, it is often surprising how well Karl Jaspers has placed it within a scheme of things. Normally, there wouldn't be much reason to consider how a history of thinking as bombing might find a place in a book like General Psychotherapy, but at the moment, it is interesting that the following ideas in this book can be assigned to a particular place on a thread that runs through it, largely about the "worlds of obsessional patients." On page 390, in Chapter VI, MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS AND THEIR SPECIFIC MECHANISMS, SECTION TWO, ABNORMAL MECHANISMS, 1. Pathological Psychogenic Reactions, ( c ) Classifications of reactive states, 2. According to the type of the reactive states: "(b) There may be an explosion in the form of fits, tantrums, rages, disjointed movements, blind acts of violence, threats and abuse. There is a working up of the self into a state of narrowed consciousness (prison-outbreaks, frenzies, short-circuit reactions, are some of the terms used)."

Rating:
Summary: I still like this book.
Review: People who learned to diagram sentences and outline thoughts when they were in school might be interested in how this book is organized around, in, and through an outline. Picking any particular topic, it is often surprising how well Karl Jaspers has placed it within a scheme of things. Normally, there wouldn't be much reason to consider how a history of thinking as bombing might find a place in a book like General Psychotherapy, but at the moment, it is interesting that the following ideas in this book can be assigned to a particular place on a thread that runs through it, largely about the "worlds of obsessional patients." On page 390, in Chapter VI, MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS AND THEIR SPECIFIC MECHANISMS, SECTION TWO, ABNORMAL MECHANISMS, 1. Pathological Psychogenic Reactions, ( c ) Classifications of reactive states, 2. According to the type of the reactive states: "(b) There may be an explosion in the form of fits, tantrums, rages, disjointed movements, blind acts of violence, threats and abuse. There is a working up of the self into a state of narrowed consciousness (prison-outbreaks, frenzies, short-circuit reactions, are some of the terms used)."

Rating:
Summary: The Doctor is In
Review: There is much more in this book than the average patient is ever going to learn in personal visits to a shrink. A thorough knowledge of the point of view presented by Jaspers goes a long way in support of the view that modern drug treatments of psychiatric problems attempt to mask symptoms, which are much easier to define and classify than the problems of existence that attempt to surface in situations where people would like an infinite solution to individual problems. In Jaspers's examination of the relationship between the doctor and the patient, any doctor who approaches a fixed view of the best remedy is in danger of failing to understand the nature of the individual patient. It helps to have some background in the personal issues which are most meaningful to the reader. In our own time, there is a controversy about the use of ancient remedies like marijuana, and I found it useful to compare therapeutic suggestions in this book with the federal government's position that smoking such stuff isn't medicine, "it's more like a Cheech and Chong show." If you want to live through reading this book, you will have to inhale while you read. Best of all, there is no point in this book at which the doctor says, "Your time is up."

Rating:
Summary: The Doctor is In
Review: There is much more in this book than the average patient is ever going to learn in personal visits to a shrink. A thorough knowledge of the point of view presented by Jaspers goes a long way in support of the view that modern drug treatments of psychiatric problems attempt to mask symptoms, which are much easier to define and classify than the problems of existence that attempt to surface in situations where people would like an infinite solution to individual problems. In Jaspers's examination of the relationship between the doctor and the patient, any doctor who approaches a fixed view of the best remedy is in danger of failing to understand the nature of the individual patient. It helps to have some background in the personal issues which are most meaningful to the reader. In our own time, there is a controversy about the use of ancient remedies like marijuana, and I found it useful to compare therapeutic suggestions in this book with the federal government's position that smoking such stuff isn't medicine, "it's more like a Cheech and Chong show." If you want to live through reading this book, you will have to inhale while you read. Best of all, there is no point in this book at which the doctor says, "Your time is up."

Rating:
Summary: A good book for mental health professionals
Review: This is a classic work on the observation of psychopathology without the theoretical overlay of other works. This author also founded phenomenology, a type of existential philosophy. This book is a must for mental health diagnosticians but might be a bit dense for the general public.