Democratic Mind

A Democratic Mind uses a lens of a "Democratic Mind" to see mental disorders as well as relationship disorders as akin and deriving from the same kind of "fascist thinking" that makes for terrifying destruction on the societal level. The common denominator is how one is harming Life This is an original pacesetting work that calls on the fields of psychology and psychiatry to diagnose all cases on the basis of how well or poorly a person is treating both themselves and others. Beyond treating pain and dysfunction, this work calls for psychotherapy that also treats human evil and cultivates a free and democratic mind that embraces life and does no harm to others. The focus on how one is living out one's life, whether one is doing noteworthy harm to oneself or to others, provides a more direct path to formulating explicit corrective goals and less mystery and ambiguity about inner motives - though ideally therapy also leads to an examination of deeper unconscious formulations in the Mind. However justified the quest for relief from personal distress, already from the beginning of therapy this approach advances the concept that the principle of commitment to life needs to be the basic goal of all psychological and psychiatric treatment. This point of view opens the door to more effective treatment than only a medical-like goal of symptom reduction for an individual. Allen Frances, M.D., who was no less than the editor of the vaunted psychiatric bible, DSM IV, writes a warmly welcoming Foreword to this book that is both an appreciation of the book along with a respectful debate with the author about the proposed diagnostic system that goes far beyond symptom lists to capture the essence of how a person is conducting their life and relating to other human beings.