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Jack Drescher
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Contemporary Psychoanalysis
Publication details, including instructions for
authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uucp20
To cite this article: Jack Drescher M.D. (2011) Agnes's Jacket: A Psychologist's Search
for the Meanings of Madness, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 47:2, 268-272, DOI:
10.1080/00107530.2011.10746456
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268 BOOK REVIEWS
range of possibilities. His choice, clearly, would be for science and the
mainstream, but he points out that life at the margins is, after all, not
death. Many practices and professions have not only survived but man-
aged to thrive there.
It has become a tiresome cliche for reviewers to say a book is "indis-
pensable" or "should be required reading." I actually do feel that way
about this book, certainly in thinking of my colleagues who play roles in
guiding institutes and professional associations into the future. But I am
all too aware that-fractured, beleaguered, preoccupied, and entrenched
as they are-they may not want to know so much about the difficult
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choices facing them. It might be more useful for me to say, simply, that
this book is chock full of fascinating facts and memorable stories. It will
engage and entertain, and certainly provide material to cite at social gath-
erings and faculty meetings. It will also provide much food for thought
along the way.
Kenneth Eisold, Ph.D., past president of the International Society for the
Psychoanalytic Studies of Organizations, as well as former director of the
Organizational Program at the White Institute, is a practicing psychoana-
lyst as well as organizational consultant. He has written extensively on
the organizational dimension of psychoanalysis.
It took three more years of attending these kinds of meetings, visiting sup-
port groups across England, and reading hundreds of pages of materials
produced by Hearing Voices Network (HVN) before I felt confident that I
understood how hearing voices groups work. ... The structure of local
HVN groups varies a great deal: Some have fixed membership, while oth-
ers operate as drop-ins. Some are facilitated by nurses, social workers or
occupational therapists; others are run entirely by voice-hearers them-
selves. HVN meetings are never as tightly structured as those of twelve-
step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, where there's a fixed order and
everyone knows exactly what will happen. But all HVN meetings do share
certain general themes. Members give detailed descriptions of their indi-
270 BOOK REVIEWS
vidual experiences. They ask one another probing questions like these:
What do the voices say? What tone do they use? How many different voices
are there? Are they male or female? Have they changed over time? Are there
certain situations when they're most likely to appear? How do you feel
when they come? By encouraging this kind of detailed contextual analysis,
hearing voices groups help people make sense of experiences that have
often baffled or terrified them. . .. By reframing the problem itself-not
voice hearing per se, but the anxiety, guilt, or fear that often accompanies
it-support groups help people analyze the symbolic significance of the
voices.
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REFERENCES
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Bayer, R. (1981), Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics ofDiagnosis. New
York: Basic Books.
Kessler, S. J. (1998), Lessonsfrom the Intersexed. New Brunswick, N]: Rutgers University
Press.
Kramer, 1. (1994), Reportsfrom the Holocaust: The Story ofan AIDS Activist. New York: St.
Martin's Press.
Luhrmann, T. M. (2000), Of Two Minds: The Grounng Disorder in American Psychiatry.
New York: Knopf.