Conversations with the Soul: A Psychiatrist Reflects - Essays on Life, Death and Beyond [Paperback]

A wide-ranging exploration of the place of spirituality in mental healthcare.?

Clinical papers are interspersed with reflections by the author on his many years of therapeutic practice and exploration of the inner life. The present climate of materialist science has led to an unremitting search for the biological causation of mental disorders, accompanied by heavy reliance on prescription drugs.

Andrew Powell offers a vision of health and wholeness that goes beyond the limitations of the physical sciences, drawing attention to an ever-present spiritual reality that accompanies us through life, and shows how in times of pain and confusion the wisdom of the soul can be called upon to bring clarity, purpose and renewed hope.

Dr Andrew PowellMA, MB.BChir, MRCP, FRCPsych, graduated from Trinity College Cambridge with Distinction in Medicine. He? specialised in psychiatry and psychotherapy at the Maudsley Hospital, London, before moving to St. Georges Hospital and Medical School as consultant and senior lecturer. Subsequently, he was appointed consultant and honorary senior lecturer at the Warneford Hospital and University of Oxford until his retirement from the National Health Service. Originally trained in psychoanalytic and group-analytic therapy, his clinical work broadened to include psychodrama, spiritual healing and transpersonal psychology. He has served on the Council of the Scientific and Medical Network and is Founding Chair of the Spirituality and Psychiatry Special Interest Group, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK. In addition to companion volumes on transpersonal psychotherapy,The Ways of the Soul. A Psychiatrist Reflects: Essays on Life, Death and Beyond,andConversations with the Soul.A Psychiatrist Reflects: Essays on Life, Death and Beyond, he is co-editor of the academic textsSpirituality and Narrative in Psychiatric PracticeandSpirituality and PsychiatlãŒ