Breaking Down is Waking up The connection between psychological distress and spiritual awakening

Razzaque explores an entirely new way of understanding psychological and mental distress based on clinical case studies from a mental hospital. His extraordinary conclusion: mental illness can be a form of spiritual awakening. The book describes new forms of treatment for mental illness inspired by Eastern approaches and centering, in particular, around practices such as mindfulness and meditation. These therapies offer both patients and their families the inspiring idea that the approach to their psychological difficulties should go beyond just "treating" episodes of mental illness but also, where possible, help the individual to complete the process of spiritual growth they have begun. Dr Razzaque argues passionately that our society as a whole could benefit from developing an awareness of the spiritual power of this process of transformation.

Written in the tradition of the bestselling medical doctors, Stanford's Irvin D. Yalom and Britain's Oliver Sacks, Breaking Down is Waking Up, will speak to both professionals in the field of mental health as well as those suffering from mental illness, their family and friends and, indeed, all those who have an interest in exploring the deepest layers of what it really means to be human.

Dr Russell Razzaque has been a practising psychiatrist in the UK for over fifteen years. He earned his medical degree from the University of London in 1996 and completed a diploma in psychotherapy two years later. He gained membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2004 and is on the Specialist Register of the UK General Medical Council. As a pioneer in his field, he was the first psychiatrist in the world to develop an online counselling service in 1998 and, after years of development, in 2009 he launched an innovative online meditation and self-help course. Dr Razzaque is a published author in human psychology - publishing in 2007 a widely acclaimed and definitive book on the psychology of suicide bombing, Human Being To Human Bomb: Inside The Mind Of A Terrorist - and he has since provided expert consultancy to the UK Prison Service, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. Dr Razzaque also regularly writes for a number of national and international publications including The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Wall Street Journal and USA Today, as well as regularly providing psychological opinion on international television news channels including the BBC and SKY. He also has a blog covering psychological issues and current affairs for Psychology Today. The author lives in UK. The author lives in UK.