The Mind Has Mountains: Reflections on Society and Psychiatry
Wise words from a wise man.(Naomi Schaefer RileyWall Street Journal)Paul McHugh is such a wonderful writer, and so brilliant a theorist, that reading him is at once an aesthetic delight and a gripping intellectual adventure. The pleasure provided by these essays—which are enriched and enlivened by fascinating stories drawn from decades of clinical experience—is heightened by the brilliant light they cast on the true nature of psychiatry and on those mountains of the mind that Dr. McHugh never stops struggling to fathom and to climb.(Norman Podhoretz, Editor-at-Large,Commentary)Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins is the man who rescued modern psychiatry from a coven of flaming nut cases with medical degrees who actually believed in such lunatic notions as 'recovered memory,' 'sexual reassignment,' 'multiple personality disorder,' 'physician-assisted suicide,' 'Vietnam-specific post traumatic stress syndrome' and destroyed innumerable lives as long as they held sway. Dr. McHugh describes his battle against them and in the process gives us a realistic picture and philosophy of the human condition.(Tom Wolfe, author ofBonfire of the VanitiesandThe Right Stuff)Paul McHugh has one of the finest minds, and sharpest tongues, in American psychiatry. He has collected some of the most foolish and misguided claims of his colleagues and examined them with crisp logic, common sense, clinical expertise, and scientific sophistication. I have never had so much fun while being educated, or so much education while having fun.(Robert Michels, M.D., Cornell University Medical College)Paul McHugh is one of the best and most original writers in psychiatry or psychology. He is iconoclastic, idealistic, deeply informed, and is one of the most important influences on generations of psychiatric researchers and clinicians.The Mind Has Mountainsis the essence of McHugh's ideas. No one will agree with everything he writes—I don't—but no one who reads this book will remain unaffected by the clarity and importance of his thinking. He is a teacher of the first rank.(Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and author ofAn Unquiet Mind)McHugh writes clearly in a straightforward manner that laymen will find gratifying... thought provoking and entertaining.(John LewisBaltimore Magazine)Paul McHugh... enjoys a little bit of controversy. He likes to poke and prod at some of the shibboleths... of psychiatry... You may not agree, but he should make you think.(Mark Welch, Ph.D.Metapsychology)Elegantly clear, concise, jargon-free.(Hopkins Medicine)This is a refreshing book... both in its moral stance and in the solid common sense of its philosophy.(Richard W. HudgensPsycCRITIQUES)McHugh writes with a wit and elegance almost extinct in his professional neighborhood.(Kay S. HymowitzCommentary)It is impossible to read these essays and not feel challenged to position onself on the issue under discussion.(Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease)Well-written, sometimes elegant.(Eric J. Cassell, M.D.New England Journal of Medicine)[McHugh] examines with wit, common sense, and humanity several trends in modern psychiatry.(Sunrise: Theosophic Perspectives)A well-written and thought-provoking volume of essays that gives mental health professionals and interested lay readers one view into topics that have been prominent at the interface between psychiatry and society for the past two decades.(Mary E. BarberPsychiatric Services)