At the age of eighteen as a Harvard college student, Dr. Breggin began working as a volunteer in a state mental hospital and was soon directing the Harvard-Radcliffe Mental Hospital Volunteer Program. This experience set the direction of the two thrusts of his ongoing work as a psychiatrist: critiquing the prevailing biological psychiatry and encouraging more positive person-centered and relationship-based therapies. From the beginning, he saw caring, thoughtful approaches as the best hope for helping people with emotional problems, including the most distressed and disturbed individuals.
For several decades, Dr. Breggin has been developing a new approach to understanding and overcoming guilt, shame and anxiety, which he sees as the root of most of what becomes labeled “emotional problems” and “mental illness.” His most recent book, Guilt, Shame and Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming Negative Emotions, represents the culmination of this work in psychology. It presents a new biological evolutionary approach to understanding the origins of our most demoralizing emotions and how to overcome them. His earlier book, The Heart of Being Helpful, more specifically addresses how to help people as a therapist, friend or family member. These two books together present his most important experiences, studies and conclusions in regard to self-help and therapy.
As a supplement to Dr. Breggin’s books, this section of Dr. Breggin’s papers provides an assortment of his scientific articles and book chapters. The next section is especially focused on his many papers examining psychiatric drugs, electroshock, psychosurgery, involuntary treatment and other problems in psychiatry.
Selected chapters from The Heart of Being Helpful (1997)
Apr 11, 1997 | psychology-life-and-overcoming-negative-emotions scientific-papers
Selected Chapters from The Heart of Being Helpful:...
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Spearheading a Transformation (1996)
Apr 11, 1996 | neuroleptics selected-scientific-papers psychology-life-and-overcoming-negative-emotions
Introduction to Psychosocial Approaches to Deeply ...
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The three dynamics of human progress (1988)
Jan 01, 1988 | therapy-counseling-and-life psychiatry-racism-coercion-and-social-control selected-scientific-papers psychology-life-and-overcoming-negative-emotions
Breggin, PR. (1988-89). Review of Existential Psyc...
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Precious the crow (1987)
Jan 01, 1987 | selected-scientific-papers psychology-life-and-overcoming-negative-emotions
Voices (Journal of the American Academy of Psychot...
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Psychotherapy as applied ethics (1971)
Jan 01, 1971 | therapy-counseling-and-life selected-scientific-papers psychology-life-and-overcoming-negative-emotions freedom-and-coercion
Breggin, PR. (1971). Psychiatry 34:59-75, 1971. ...
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