‘The Sublime Object of Psychiatry’ studies representations of schizophrenia, and acknowledges a wide range of disciplines, including biological and phenomenological psychiatry, psychoanalysis, critical psychology, anti-psychiatry, and postmodern philosophy. Such an analysis permits a privileged view of the way in which schizophrenia has been framed within different discourses.

Perhaps challenging the typical consensus of psychiatry, rather diagnosing causation, Dr Woods focuses on how the term ‘schizophrenia’ is “powerful in its effects – it has potency, meaning, and agency in the clinical and cultural realms, which is the task of this book to investigate”.

Overall, ‘The Sublime Object of Psychiatry’ serves as a dialogue between clinical and cultural theories, and consequently, thoroughly represents an innovative precedent for the role of the humanities in medicine of interest to both academics and clinicians.

A link to the Oxford University Press website with further details of the book, plus the opportunity to download the Introduction, can be found here: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199583959.do