What Is Madness?
  • Published: 21 November 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141047355
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $22.99

What Is Madness?

Formats & editions
Paperback
21 Nov 2012
EBook
28 Nov 2011
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The widely acclaimed author of The New Black returns with this brilliant exploration of madness

What separates the sane from the mad? How can we tell them apart? And what if the difference is really between being mad and going mad?

In this landmark work Darian Leader undermines common conceptions of madness. Through case studies like the apparently 'normal' Harold Shipman, he shows that madness rarely conforms to standard models. And by exploring the idea of quiet madness - that at times many of us live interior lives that are far from sane but allow us to function normally and unthreateningly - he argues that we must seek a new way to assess, treat and deal with those suffering mental health problems.
  • Published: 21 November 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141047355
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $22.99
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About the author

Darian Leader

Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst practising in London and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research.

portrait photo of Darian Leader

Also by Darian Leader

Is It Ever Just Sex?
Why Can't We Sleep?
Hands
Strictly Bipolar
The New Black
Why Do People Get Ill?
See all

Praise for What Is Madness?

Engrossing and enlightening . . . Leader is as much a philosopher as a psychoanalyst

Metro

Fascinating, humane and timely . . . Leader forces us to rethink our assumptions about 'mental health' with a formidable grasp of psychiatric history and a storyteller's flair for detail

Lisa Appignanesi, New Statesman

Witty, probing . . . A myth-busting diagnosis of the method in our madness

Independent

Wonderful

Bookseller

[Says] something that very much needs to be said

Irish Times