About the Author
John Suler is a writer, scholar, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychology at Rider University. Internationally recognized as an expert in emerging fields of psychology, he has published widely on topics related to eastern philosophy, psychotherapy, and cyberspace, including the books Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Eastern Thought (State University of New York Press) and his groundbreaking work The Psychology of Cyberspace, one of the first and most widely cited online hypertext books.
Suler’s popular websites include Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbors and the innovative guide Teaching Clinical Psychology. Most recently, his lifelong passion for photography and the role of images in identity expression has led him to develop Photographic Psychology as a way to study how people create, share, and react to images.
Suler’s work has been translated into a dozen languages and reported widely by national and international media, including the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, US News and World Report and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Much of his work is available online, including his most recent work Photographic Psychology: Image and Psyche. The author currently lives with his wife and two daughters in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Madman
Strange Adventures of a Psychology Intern
Is the therapist a madman, or is the madman a therapist? 
Based on real life experiences and written by an internationally recognized expert in emerging fields of psychology, Madman immerses the reader into the world of a psychology intern working on the psychiatric unit of a modern teaching hospital.
With irreverent humor, a surreal imagination, and undercurrents of eastern philosophy, this coming-of-age novel captures the point of view of a young clinical psychologist, Thomas Holden. A keen observer with a comic eye, Holden’s ongoing musings about his strange experiences with patients and staff expose both the absurdity and the idealism inherent in psychotherapy.
The Story
The depressed patient Holden discharged was run over by a mail truck. Was it suicide? Is he responsible for her death? His new patient Richard Mobin is an obese, rather disgusting, and violent schizophrenic who drowns baby birds and thinks that men in raincoats are trying to kill him. If that isn't enough to handle, Holden is assigned yet another difficult patient - a "John Doe" who apparently has no memory or identity, whom police found wandering the highway, collecting and burying road kill. Ultimately overwhelmed, Holden wonders whether rational knowledge can truly grasp the human mind, and whether he himself is losing his grip on reality.
The Un-Textbook for Teaching Psychology
As a professor of psychology, John Suler kept his own psychology students in mind while writing the novel. Holden’s story helps them understand the professional and personal life of the psychologist in training, while excerpts from his journal interspersed throughout the novel encourage students to understand important and controversial issues concerning mental health and psychotherapy. Suler’s students rave about this unique “un-textbook” that is nothing like any of the standard texts for teaching psychopathology and psychotherapy:
“It pulled me in from beginning to end!... Hilarious!”
“It puts everything we’re learning {in class} into perspective."
“One of the best novels I have read in college.” “An informative glimpse into the world of the psychologist. It gave a clear impression of what life is like as an intern on a psychiatric unit.”
“I loved the character Thomas Holden. He was amazing. I would be reading along and then all of a sudden he would say something so outrageous or funny that I would have to highlight the sentence or reread it.”
“It’s really intriguing to see the therapist’s point of view rather than the patient’s.”
“I have a better view of graduate school, being an intern and what to expect (oh boy!)”
“I liked every aspect of this book. It kept me wanting to read more. I never wanted to put it down.”
For more information...
For information about the psychology topics discussed in Madman, a free instructor teaching packet, sample chapters, and ordering the book, visit the True Center Publishing website.
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