The publishers of this book (written by Prof. Richard Bentall) say that:
“… he explains what madness is, shows that it can be understood in psychological terms, and shows that by studying it we can learn important insights about the normal mind. The book argues that traditional approaches to madness must be abandoned in favour of a new approach which is more consistent with that we now know about the human mind.”
They continue:
“Over the last century or so it has become so commonplace to regard madness simply as a medical condition that it has become difficult to think of it in any other way. Bentall argues instead that delusion, hallucinations and other unusual behaviours are best understood psychologically, and that such experiences for the most part represent exaggerations of mental foibles to which we are all prone …”
You can find our more from here.
[Editor’s note: Such a mainly psychological explanation might be seen to some extent as conflicting with the ideas of psychologists such as Isabel Clarke, author of Madness, Mystery and the Survival of God, for whom some such experiences are seen as transliminal (“going beyond the threshold”) / spiritual experiences rather than just ‘psychological’.]
