John Weir PERRY

JOHN WEIR PERRY (1914–1998)

John Weir Perry first met C. G. Jung in Switzerland as a young medical student, where he was intrigued by Jung’s assertion that schizophrenia is a natural healing process. Among his many books are The Self in Psychotic Process: Its Symbolization in Schizophrenia (with a foreword by Jung), The Heart of History: Individuality in Evolution; and Lord of the Four Quarters: The Mythology of Kingship.

THE FAR SIDE OF MADNESS
with a preface by JOHN BEEBE

Paperback original, $25
250 pages, third edition
ISBN: 978-0-88214-090-2

Kindle/Apple Books, $9.99
ISBN: 978-0-88214-091-9

During the 1970s, Perry founded an experimental residential facility called Diabasis, in Berkeley, Calif., designed as a supportive home for young adults who were experiencing the initial days of their first “acute schizophrenic break.” At Diabasis, these full-blown “schizophrenics” were able to emerge “on the far side of madness” without medications, electroshock therapy, or locked doors. When The Far Side of Madness was first published in 1974, Perry’s deep insight into the nature of so-called “schizophrenia” opened the way for a radically new, more compassionate approach to this condition. This pioneering work of Jungian psychiatry reframes acute psychotic episodes in the context of visionary experience of schizophrenic patients and describes innovative methods of handling them.