The Mind Has Mountains

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 of Bonfire of the Vanities and The 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 Mountains is 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 of An Unquiet Mind

America's leading psychiatrist may inspire you or offend you, but he will certainly make you think.From strenuous opposition to physician-assisted suicide to a conviction that sex-correction surgery for newborns is cruel and misguided, Dr. Paul R. McHugh's opinions are strong and often controversial. In this collection of essays, McHugh demonstrates why he is one of the most thought-provoking figures in the academic world. These pieces argue for a realistic appraisal of just what psychiatrists know and how they know it, with the aim of indicating how such knowledge can best be used not only for better patient care but also to reflect on and influence public issues and social movements. His essays will stimulate professional and popular discussion about the goals and effectiveness of current psychiatric practice. McHugh sorts through the layers of what he terms the "culturally driven misdirection of psychiatry and psychotherapy" to explain concepts often misunderstood by nonscholars and the intellectual community alike. America's leading psychiatrist may inspire you or offend you, but he will certainly make you think.