Psychotherapy for a Democratic Mind

I.W. Charny is retired professor of psychology and family therapy at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Psychotherapy for a Democratic Mind presents a creative focusing of Israel W. Charny’s general concept of democratic and fascistic minds to a crucial field of application. An unusual blend of material from clinical psychology, personality theory, and political psychology, its core terms symbolize broad personality types. The result is a set of novel and thought-provoking ideas for clinical theory, diagnosis, and treatment.

• Foreword, by Douglas SprenklePrefaceAcknowledgmentsPart I: Some Old-Fashioned Plus Some Newly Fashionable Psychiatric Syndromes and Relationship DisordersChapter 1: Some Old and New Psychiatric DisordersChapter 2: Intimacy and Relationship DisordersDemocratic Mind Versus Fascist Mind in Intimacy and Relationship Disorders in Marriage, Parenting and Family LifeWhat’s It All About: Being Real along with a Discipline of Decency Family Enmeshment and Disengagement: Reasonable Ideas for Family Life Taken Too FarThe Inevitable Imperfection of ‘Perfect Marriages,’Victimization in Families in Everyday Life: Violence and Sexual Abuse, Abandoning, Exploiting, Scapegoating and Sacrificing Members of One’s Family'I'm Alright Jack Personalities': People Who Seemingly Don’t Have Any Problems and Assign All the Burden to Someone Else in the FamilyA Need to Give to Others but Not to Receive for Oneself: Big Givers who Take Away the Others’ StrengthUnquestioning Loyalty to One’s Family as a Basis for being AbusedSexual Dysfunctions: How Certainties Can Get in the Way of Making Love WellGenuine Communication for Genuine Relationships: The Give-and-Take of Real Clarification of Needs, Criticism, Anger and LoveChapter 3: Disorders of Neurosis, Depression and Suicide RevisitedChapter 4: Personality and Character Disorders of Self-EntitlementChapter 5: Old-Fashioned Plus Newly Fashionable DisordersOld-Fashioned Psychotic Abdications of RealityAffective Psychoses—Mania and DepressionParanoid Psychoses—Paranoid Schizophrenia and Paranoia, including Paranoid Thinking in a Political ContextParanoid Thinking in a Political ContextA Newer ‘Hit’ Disorder of Our Time: AnorexiaSome Miscellaneous Unrecognized Bedeviling SyndromesThe ‘Orphan Syndrome’ or Self-Made PersonA New Syndrome of Grown Kids Who Live at Home Forever and Often Rule their Parents AbsolutelyStrange, Crazy Criminal Behaviors including ‘for the Thrill of it All,’Cases of ‘Perfect’ and ‘Normal’ Kids Who Murder Someone—Sometimes Their Parents—UnexpectedlyThe Unsavory Suicide-Killers of Our Era, Including Some Cases of Nice and Quiet ‘Good Guys’—or Women—Who Become Suicide-Killer TerroristsSudden Unexpected Death Syndrome (SUNDS)The New ‘American Way’ of Mass Killing at Columbines, Shopping Centers and Other Public PlacesPeople of the Lie—Invisible Destroyers of Others’ LivesPart II: Developing New Psychotherapy for a Democratic Mind: Including Overcoming and Treating Some Conditions of Violence and EvilChapter 6: Ultimate Choices: To Be For Life or Not To BeChapter 7: Treating Violence and EvilChapter 8: Author’s Voice: What is Going to Happen to All of Us? What Can I Do with My Time?AppendixBibliographyAbout the Author