Books like Mad to be normal by R. D. Laing

Alan Watts examines the paradox of human insecurity, arguing that the pursuit of stability breeds anxiety. Drawing on philosophy, religion, and psychology, he invites Western readers to reconsider their relationship with time, pain, and the world.

In this seminal 1960 work, psychiatrist R. D. Laing uses clinical case studies to argue that psychosis arises from a split within the self, contrasting the authentic private identity with the socially constructed ‘sane’ persona.

Szasz argues that belief in mental illness and its social actions have the same moral and political implications as belief in witchcraft, pointing to the parallels between psychiatric practices and witch-hunts.

A collection of essays and a free-flowing piece of poetry and prose exploring interpersonal relations and alienation in society.

From Kay Redfield Jamison - an international authority on manic-depressive illness, and one of the few women who are full professors of medicine at American universities - a remarkable personal testimony: the revelation of her own struggle since adolescence with manic-depression, and how it has shaped her life. Vividly, directly, with candor, wit, and simplicity, she takes us into the fascinating and dangerous territory of this form of madness - a world in which one pole can be the alluring dark land ruled by what Byron called the "melancholy star of the imagination," and the other a desert of depression and, all too frequently, death. A moving and exhilarating memoir by a woman whose furious determination to learn the enemy, to use her gifts of intellect to make a difference, led her to become, by the time she was forty, a world authority on manic-depression, and whose work has helped save countless lives.

Elyn R. Saks, a distinguished professor and lawyer, chronicles her lifelong battle with schizophrenia, detailing how she overcame challenges to build a respected career in law, psychology, and psychiatry.