I was working the BiPolar shift in the cafeteria of the local mental hospital and overheard this and wanted to share it with you. Bernard Lumbert, orthopolar designate

1st Dr. "So Carl, I see you have finished "Creating Mental Illness" by Alan Horwitz?" (The author spells his name with two "l's" I noted but then I am delusional and observe things others miss)

2nd Dr. "Yes Sig, Enjoyed it very much. A pretty good read." (He would probably fake an orgasm, I mused, all reviewers say "good read")

1st Dr. "Good read? My gawd it's supposed to be fairly heavy stuff. You and I went through Dynamic Psychotherapy and we thought that was heavy. Isn't this social source stuff new? Wasn't Compte an alienist or something?" (Yess, dear sir, and the thought will surge up to your senium that if Sociologists can define maladaptive behavior, they may be able to cure it. Bye bye MD/OD)

2nd Dr. "Well, I skipped around a lot but read chapter 7, about social sources of mental illness, twice." (Read it twice; understand it once, I thought)

1st Dr. "We are psychiatrists, aren't we supposed to know that about sources, and origins and genetic vulnerability? Doesn't that nature trump the nurture of homelife?" (You are drawing to an inside straight with your trump I sez, you can't change people's minds with facts.)

2nd Dr. "Let me give you an example. Do you have patients that are involved with heavy drinking, drug use, and cooking their company books?" (I wait breathlessly)

1st Dr. "Why sure we see them every day. They are not sick, not diagnosable with medical syndromes." (hawl-a lu-ya!)

2nd Dr. "And that is what Dr. Horwitz explains so very well. Many cultural excesses can be transformed into a morbid fixation just like a personality trait becomes a personality disorder if you find it in the DSM. You just add..

"Just add three or more digits..," chortled Dr. Sig. "If it has numbers, it is a personality DISORDER, otherwise it is a personality TRAIT like biting your nails." (Bite this I thought as I handed them each a sliver of new whitefish we just got in.)

2nd Dr. "Well, yes and yes. In our heart of hearts we all know that the etiology, the origin, the mother load(sic) of most dysfunction in most patients is societal." (yes, and you can inherit post traumatic stress syndrome from your grandchildren, I thought as I ladled out a side of creamcheese.)

1st Dr. "But, as Howrwitz noted, the DSM manual, our bible, now lists over 400 mental illnesses and when my dad was practicing there was only 40 on the list. That's quite an increase." (once there were only two rabbits in Australia, I thought, now look at how many there are.)

2nd Dr. "How do you explain the vast increase?" (I waited breathlessly for a vast response)

1st Dr. "Simple, according to Horwitz, there is a hobby amongst the authors of the DSM to create all new diseases that could be treated with all new meds only, thereby creating an expanding market for pharmacies and script writers and downplaying the simpler psychologists who do only oral therapy." (well, the reply was only half vast I thought)

2nd Dr. "See if I got this straight. You are suggesting that the 1,000 scientists who created the DSM, the largest single book written by a committee since the King James Bible, were working in cahoots with providers to sell more drugs?" (This guy is a reglar Sherlock homes, I ruminated as I waited for the next non-sequitir)

"Bernie can I have some more pickle?" Dr. Sigmund asked As he proffered me the plate with one quarter of a dilly on it. "Sure", I replied as I took my razor sharp Swiss Army scalpel and brissed the cucumber with two swift incisions, making three slices where only one was before.
He never noticed the deception, but Carl thought, "That explains it. You just keep slicing mental illness thinner and thinner". Did you know I could read minds?

Seriously, I can read minds. You are gonna like this book!

Dr. Horwitz provides in this book a well researched assessment of the current state of affairs of the mental health system, primarily in America. He discusses the growth of the number of accepted mental disorders from only a few (around 1900) to somewhere around 500 (DSM-IV, for instance). Much of this growth seems to be attributable to efforts to get third-party payers (generally insurance companies) to pay for treatment.

Horwitz presents plenty of evidence and argument about how clinical trials favor the use of psychiatric medications over counseling (it is difficult to conduct a double-blind controlled, with placebo, study with counseling: usually someone knows when he/she is being counseled or not counseled). He presents additional evidence that professionally trained counselors/therapists have not been shown to be better than untrained counselors -- for the main ingredients in counseling are empathy and support (something often missing in professionally trained mental health workers). He discusses how many of the "new" disorders (that give 500, versus the few that were considered to exist in 1900) are merely sociological problems or the result of sociological problems -- and medications do not usually make them go away, but merely help them be tolerated.

My words cannot really do justice to the high quality of this book. Recommended reading for all mental health professionals and for anyone with concerns about the current status of mental health practices in America, and perhaps the world.

This is an excellent (and probably only) English-language guide to thorough Danish grammar. Very refined grammatical points are exemplified and explained in terms that even a non-linguist can understand. This thick book is neatly organized, the material is logically presented, and is hip with contemporary language and usage.

If you want to understand the language of Danish -- and Danes are sticklers for grammar, both Danish and English -- then you must have this book or a Danish nun as a teacher. The cross-cultural equivalent of Warriner's English; everything but sentence diagramming. Not quite Strunk & White's Elements of Style, but I need its 600-plus pages. The terminology is "rather" British (see "copulative conjunctions"), yet it even instructs how to properly form colloquial sentences -- "so" colloquial that a Danish friend to whom I had written thought I must have made a mistake because the sentence structure I had used, as a beginner, seemed to arcanely correct. In short, this book is outwardly dull but extremely useful.

This book is great fun for young and old alike! It shows what the consequences of our actions can have on our earth and how we can overcome the problems we have created by all pulling together. Beautifully illustrated!

This is a book that children and adults will enjoy. The adults will enjoy the message that this book is sending to future generations and children will love it for the colorful and descriptive illustrations. An admirable contribution by a talented and farseeing author.

I am an epidemiologist responsible for designing and overseeing implementation, analysis and reporting of a number of cluster randomized health intervention trials in developing countries. I found this book absolutely terrific for several reasons. First, the scope of the book is broad. This is not just a compilation of statistical methods. The authors discuss the rationale for cluster randomization, its historic development, specific issues that arise in planning the studies, securing informed consent and other ethical issues affected by cluster design. The final chapter reviews the central themes of the book in discussing how to fully report a cluster randomized trial. Throughout these chapters the authors describe both the theoretical issues raised, as well as practical solutions. Second, the book represents a succinct and collected discussion of the relevant issues. As a non-statistician, I don't read the primary statistical literature. I do read health intervention studies that employ a cluster randomized method. I may attend an occasional short seminar on cluster design, or discuss particular issues with collaborating statisticians, but until I read this book, I felt I was freelancing each design and analysis issue. After reading the book I have exposure to the whole paradigm. I can understand the design and analysis choices, make better decisions, and make consultations with my collaborating statisticians more focused and productive. Third, options for analysis, including their assumptions, advantages and disadvantages, as well as methods for calculating sample size are systematically presented. This directly empowers the reader to make balanced and sound decisions about appropriate study size and analytic approach. Fourth, the book is readable. The ideas, at times, are quite dense, but because of the abundant use of practical examples, the authors consistently communicate their message clearly. I hesitated to buy this book for months, because of the price tag for a 178 page book of unknown quality. After reading it, I am convinced that a short course would not have taught me as much. Moreover I now have a reference book that I can use in thinking through each of the issues for my studies, for teaching my epidemiological trainees, and for citing when writing manuscripts. In short, a GREAT book for the right audience.

i love this book it is so good.my father wrote this book.my name is even in it.i am ten years old.but if you like epidiniology and biostatistcks you'll love this book. (...)

One of a fantastic series of 4 chuck full of informational volumes dedicated to a particular geographic area. A must for any rock hound weather you travel or just live in the geographic area of the volume. If you can afford it, get all 4 regional volumes. Start with your area. The location information brake down of the minerals to be found in each state counties is so valuable you can't do with out it. Saves time, eliminate barren hunting grounds and it's so detailed as to where and how you find the minerals. This is just one of a fact full accurate guide series you'll want to have in your rock library. Don't settle for an older printing, this one is reprinted and has been updated.

This book looks like it's going to be a GREAT asset in my mineral hunting! I like the way it's set up, by state and then by county within the state. It lists the various sites, tells what has been found at each site and (by a code explained in the front of the book) where in each site the minerals were (in a field, in a mine, in the water, etc.). There are directions of varying degrees to each site. That's the one thing I'd quibble about -- some of the directions aren't that precise. But I understand that some of these sites are private lands, or not completely documented, and he can't come out and say, "Go fifty feet past the blue house, down a ravine, and to your left." In general, the directions seem good enough to get you close, and after that it's up to you.

He lists the rocks and minerals found at each site and gives some information about the quality at most places, including size of crystals found, color (and quality of color), and so on.

My only regret? I don't know if I'll have time to visit each site he has listed! So many rocks, so little time........

This is a unique and invaluable book. It is the only first-person narrative in English of the East Timorese resistance from the 1975 invasion to the 1992 capture of Xanana Gusmão. The cataclysmic events of the Indonesian occupation that have been carefully chronicled before in several third-person accounts are presented here as moments of danger and decision in an individual's life. Pinto, with the editorial help of Jardine, has succeeded in giving the reader a vivid sense of how the East Timorese have struggled and survived through the torrent of violence that has been unleashed upon them. The reader follows Pinto from a worry-free childhood, when he played games such as kalek (which involves knocking fruits out of a certain type of tree), to a danger-filled adolescence and adulthood. At age 13, he fled with his family from his hometown of Remexio (southeast of Dili) while mortar shells and bombs rained down around them. For a year and a half, they lived in a town further south, just out of the Indonesian army's reach. There he learned guerrilla fighting and weekly alternated guard duty on the front line with farm work. Overcoming his initial trepidation and despondency, he gained the resolve to fight until death. When the Indonesian military (ABRI) escalated its counter-insurgency campaign in late 1977, Pinto and his family fled again. The thousands who took refuge in the forested hills became cut off from their food supplies: "sometimes we only had a piece of manioc to eat for the whole day." Each family spent the day hiding from the soldiers and the night searching for food. Pinto, with his parents, siblings and 50 other people, were captured after one year of hardscrabble life in the jungle. ABRI soldiers had forced several recently captured East Timorese to lead them to the others in the forest. His hometown Remexio, where ABRI resettled the captives, was turned into a concentration camp. It was a demoralizing time. He saw his friends, relatives and neighbors die of dysentery and malnutrition. He saw a manacled Xavier do Amaral, the head of the main resistance organization, brought before the townspeople to make a coerced 'apology.' With the help of relatives, Pinto's family soon moved to Dili in late 1978. As many East Timorese were driven out of the forests and into the cities and towns, their terrain of resistance shifted from the liberated zones to the Indonesian-controlled territory. They learned the arts of dissimulation under the harsh conditions of a settler colonialism. Pinto describes how he would appear loyal and submissive before the Indonesians with whom he had to daily interact, while privately dreaming of independence and secretly scheming with friends. Pinto joined an underground movement in Dili in 1983 that worked undetected amidst the occupiers. It was this underground movement, constantly in touch with the guerrillas still in the hills, that was behind the highly visible civil protests of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Pinto, as the head of the underground at that time, reveals the planning behind the actions during the visits of the Pope (October 1989) and the US ambassador John Monjo (January 1990). His eyewitness behind-the-scenes account of the demonstration to the Santa Cruz cemetery on November 12, 1992 and the massacre of 271 people is essential reading on this event. Particularly important is Pinto's narration of how Xanana Gusmao lived underground (literally) in Dili from February 1991 to November 1992. Pinto's unadorned and ordinary prose indicates the mental balance he has been able to maintain through extraordinary experiences, such as his vertiginous mind games with Indonesian intelligence while posing as a double agent and his dangerous overland escape from East Timor. The hyped-up, overcharged spy thrillers of pulp fiction are no match for the terrors of real-life experiences straightforwardly narrated. For those who know little about East Timor, this book makes for an excellent introduction. To complement Pinto's gripping narrative, Jardine has provided background material on Indonesian and US politics in prefatory and concluding essays. Much care has been put into the footnotes, bibliography, and selection of photographs. For those who know much about this tortured half-island, Pinto's inside information reveals much that they would not have known. In sum, this book is a landmark achievement in the literature on East Timor.

Constâncio Pinto's life is an exemple of what it means to live in fear for most of your life and, despite that, maintain a constant sense of justice in a world that's not fair. As a brazilian, I certainly can relate with his testimony - of a catholic, portuguese-speaking man. He describes with incredible simplicity and humanity (and that's why the book is so powerful) all his life as an East Timor resistence member, seeing your friends being killed and being himself brutally tortured and persecuted. East Timor's fight is a methaphor for the most brutal opression vs. the faith in freedom, justice and peace. And with people like Constâncio, we are reminded that peace and justice are always achievable no matter how we suffer and no matter how hard is our struggle.

I'll read his tales aloud to anyone who will listen. It's corny, but otherwise disinterested persons become enthralled. It's true that one's passion for a thing can influence others - if it's positive. I encouraged my sister to do a reading of his poem 'The Bells' for class. In it, you can hear the din of different bells from the cheerful to the utter gloom.

There's something unexplainably healthy about a good ghost story or death-inspired poem. The unknown is thrilling. Poe's language contains enormouse range. Readers reactions are consequent to his methods. You have to buy into his smokey, ideal-drenched realm! BE carried away!

I snatch up every collection of his works - old ones especially. The illustrations are fabuloso.

Poe has always been a favorite writer of mine, and I enjoyed this convenient collate of his best work. The Raven and The Masque Of The Red Death, especially. I highly recommend this to anyone who appreciates good poetry and literature.

I loved it! It was recomended to me by my 7th grade teacher. She said that bcause I liked Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury she thougt I'd like Masque Of The Red Death so I decided to check it out and I loved it! It was so good. I highly recomend it to anyone who likes to read.

The book The Masque of the Red Death is by Edgar Allan Poe. I thought this book was great. It is about a ghost that haunts a castle. All the people were scared and they could not escape the ghost. The "red death" killed many people. If you want to find out what happens you should read this book.

This is excellent reading material for anyone that needs to reflect on their own personal lives. I have used the same values that the book refers to in my own classroom, and my students have embrased it wholeheartedly. We will continue to used this book as a resource to further analyze what constitutes the making of a community and self development. Again, Great Little Book. Robert Cortez

THIS BOOK SO BEAUTIFULLY REACHED ME WITH THE CHAPTERS OF HIS LIFE THAT HE SO GRACIOUSLY HAS SHARED. I WAS STIRRED TO REACH OUT TO ALL OF THOSE IN MY LIFE THAT HAVE NUTURED ME IN TO THE PERSON I AM TODAY. THE BOOK TOOK 8 BASIC BUT TRULY NEEDFUL HABITS AND MADE ME REALIZE HOW IMPORTANT THESE HABITS ARE TO BRINGING OUR COMMUNITIES BACK TO WHAT AMERICA NEEDS TODAY. I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO FRIENDS, FAMILY, TEACHERS, MINISTERS... IT APPLIES TO ALL SETTINGS. THANK YOU CLIFTON FOR JUMPSTARTING MY HEART AND DIRECTING ME IN TO A NEW PHASE OF MY LIFE. I SO MUCH NEEDED TO HEAR YOUR LESSONS. FOR MY FAMILY, I WILL BE A BETTER MOTHER AS A RESULT.

This book is a practical book with many concrete information. For exemple the capacity in an high voltage power station or the author explain in very good details what happens during a fault in a circuit breaker. The only point that i find is not so positive is that the solutions manual is not to buy. I use this book for understanding any situations in the power plant.

One of the most notable features of Greenwoods text is he starts with the basics of transient electrical circuit theory and builds up chapter by chapter to the most difficult and misunderstood cases of power system transients. Especially appealing to a practicing power engineer is his dual slant on problem analysis. He not only demonstrates a mastery for the sometimes nasty mathematical analysis of transient problems, he shows his years of practical experience with logical physical explanations that reduce complex problems to several simple circuits problems. I definitely recommend this text for power system engineers interested in the transient response of power systems and how it affects all types of power equipment.