Welcome

to a psychological study of irrationality and confusion

The ideas on this site focus on the difficulties and sorrows of personal evolution

I give a description of the common forms of madness (or psychosis), along with explanations of their psychological origins. I treat madness as forms of confusion and mental disorder, and not as mental illness. Hence I do not consider biological or physiological possibilities.

I also explore some psycho-somatic disorders, as lesser forms of confusion, and some standard ways of changing a person's basic belief systems through the process of abreaction.

Madness has been around as long as recorded history. The causes are various. Sometimes it may be due to heavy metal poisoning, such as when toxic fumes of mercury vapour are inhaled. Sometimes it may develop from physical diseases such as syphilis. A few cases may arise from possession by ‘spirits’, whether good or bad ones. Sometimes it may be due to problems in the adult years, such as being persecuted (and so becoming paranoid). But, in my view, the majority of psychotic people owe their disorder to problems encountered in infancy.

The Origin of my Ideas

My views of mental disorder are the product of many years of intense psycho- analysis, when I explored the confusions and immaturities at the base of my ego, or personality. My ideas are new, and were created by the empirical analysis of my personal sorrows.

My views have little correspondence to conventional psychiatric ideologies. I describe mental confusion from the inside ; psychiatry describes it from the outside.

Mental disorder occurs below the level of the conscious mind. To describe this hidden aspect of mind, I use two terms : the subconscious mind and the unconscious mind. I define these terms as follows.

I use the term subconscious mind for what is personal to the individual,

and the term unconscious mind for what is general to humanity.

The basic ideas on this site rely on my understanding of emotions and the process of abreaction. These ideas are on all my psychology websites, and are repeated below.

The other articles rely on the basic ideas.

BASIC . IDEAS
Group of articles on emotion and abreaction

MORE . IDEAS
List of other articles

OTHER . SITES
Links, plus previews of my other websites

About Me

This website was put on the internet in spring 2003.
The first address was www.mind-fragments.co.uk. However, in late 2004, I changed hosts and address. Now this site is a sub-domain of my site for general dynamic psychology, Discover Your Mind.

Copyright © 2003 Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved

The copyright is mine, and the articles are free to use. They can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.

Ian Heath
London, UK

www.confusion.discover-your-mind.co.uk/index.htm

e-mail address:
iheath.cfn<at>discover-your-mind.co.uk

If you want to contact me, use the address above but replace the <at> by @

It may be a few days before I can respond to correspondence.