Books by J. K. Wing

The exact definition of "madness" remains elusive

The exact definition of 'madness' remains elusive. Controversy has centered on frightening potential possessed by the state to deprive of his rights the individual officially classified as mad. This book compares concepts of madness prevalent in different types of society, examining the Marxist attitude towards the deviant in a socialist state.

This book was published in 1974 as a guide to a method of partially standardising the assessment of a subject's mental state with the object of achieving greater comparability between different examiners. The basis of the technique is a glossary of definitions of symptoms grounded in the European school of psychiatry.