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An American-Israeli Psychiatrist reflects on sixty years of experience in the changing field of mental health. Starting with Foxboro State Hospital of the 1950´s, the author describes his struggles with the contradictions inherent in medical and psychiatric training and practice. Each decade includes an imaginary conversation with Michel Foucault, one of the most important social critics of the twentieth century. The work provides a roller-coaster ride of wit and wisdom, anger and despair, warmth and relation. Losing It challenges mental health professionals from trainees to seasoned veterans with an incisive mirror of unspoken experiences and offers a wealth of conceptual analysis and suggestions for change. The work contains an unusually readable account of Foucault´s thought brought to life through concrete examples from the author´s vast array of professional encounters. Students of Foucault will find here a consideration of many topics which are carried an additional step beyond Foucault´s writings and recently published lectures.

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Alan Flashman was born on the grounds of Foxboro State Hospital. He trained in Child Psychiatry in New York and moved to Israel in 1983. He both teaches and critiques mental health practice in his university instruction and in his many publications in English and Hebrew. He recently retranslated Martin Buber´s classic I and Thou into modern Hebrew.

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