Psychotherapy for a Democratic Mind: Treating Intimacy, Tragedy, Violence, and Evil

Psychotherapy for a Democratic Mind proposes that the optimal goal of psychotherapy lies in cultivating a free mind with integrity that will not seek to do major harm to one’s life or to the lives of others. This book looks at a wide range of psychiatric disorders, including classic conditions of neurosis, personality disorders and psychoses, through a different lens. Rather than simply enumerating symptoms, namely, how a person is addressing the opportunity of his/her life and the lives of others and whether a person is doing harm to themselves and/or others. This book proceeds to grapple with several critical life experiences and styles: tragedy, violence and evil, all of which often have posed insurmountable problems in therapy.

About the Author

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