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The Manic Link

 

By

Stuart Marshall

 

ISBN:  1-905451-15-6

978-1-905451-15-9

 

Price…. € 15.00

 

 

 

 

‘Stuart Marshall’s The Manic Link, is a strikingly original synthesis of psychology and politics. 

Concentrating on the manic phase of bi-polar disorder  which has received much less attention than the depressive side - Marshall shows its huge potential for a kind of        demonic creativity.  By closely considering the manic personality - of which Napoleon and Hitler (and, in my experience, many Hollywood producers) are paradigms - he demonstrates that the demons which drive great historical actors are not confined to their psychology but permeate the world of history, religion and politics.  Marshall’s new     analytical approach may help us to identify manic cultures, manic ideologies and manic societies - and protect ourselves from their excesses. 

Accordingly, apart from its sheer intellectual interest, this book throws new light on a host of practical problems in today's world.’

 

Eoghan Harris (Sunday Independent)

 

 

‘This book is crammed with insight not just into the conditions of manic and hypomania but into the human condition itself.’

 

John Waters (Irish Times Columnist)

 

 

‘Stuart Marshall ventures deep into the jungles of Modern Mania and sends up smoke signals encrypted with his own insight and experience.

The Manic Link crackles with energy, its hypotheses frequently bordering on the contentious and controversial.’

 

Peter Murphy (Hot Press Columnist)

 

 

‘What makes the mind of a mad tyrant tick?  What subliminal psychic energies motivate religious revolutionaries, politicians, and celebrities?  And what happens when those traits go unrestrained?  These are just some of the unsettling questions posed by Stuart Marshall in ‘The Manic Link’.  Whether you love it or loathe it, this challenging book will force you to think about contemporary society in novel ways.  For that alone, it is worth the risk’.

 

Dr. Mark Dooley (Irish Daily Mail Columnist)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Manic Depressive Illness

 

           I came first in my secondary school (high school) in the Leaving Certificate (A Levels) with A's in Biology and Chemistry and a B in Physics and a C in Honours Maths. I then studied medicine for seven years in Trinity and specialised in psychiatry. I spent two years in general psychiatry, six months in mental handicap care, six months in geriatric psychiatry, one year in child psychiatry, six months in community care, and a year working in semi-secure psychiatric unit. I had passed the first part of two examinations for the Membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists before I was attacked outside a night club when I drunkenly tried to stop a fight and ended up being kicked unconscious.  As a consequence I developed paranoia that has since been exacerbated by alcohol so that is why I'm in AA. My professional interest in schizophrenia and then manic-depressive illness, have given me an insight into the condition of hypomania.

           In Manic-Depressive Illness (MDI) there are certain features of character, personality, and behaviour that are found by psychiatrists in the manic (high) phase of the illness. A manic high means that the patient is physically, mentally, emotionally and intellectually overactive. These features are collated in the Manic Archetype Psychology column found below. These features I call the manic archetypes. I believe that the manic archetypes are hot-wired in the brain though not normally "turned on"; but when these manic archetypes are stimulated in people both normal and manic certain patterns of behaviour are expressed.

MDI is found in one percent of the populations of western developed countries in Socio-economic Class 1 and 2 where studies have been done.  But some traits of MDI are found in at least ten percent of people, maybe more in large cities, especially in New York where people talk and walk thirty percent more quickly than average. The medicalization of mania by the use of antidepressants has brought on the concept of pharmacologically happy, laid-back clients. 

           However, under certain circumstances a lower level of mania, hypomania, can be induced in almost the entire population. When people are made hypomanic they spend more money, because of a generally increased sense of well-being, confidence and self-love.  The spending of money is the basis of capitalism and stimulation of the archetypes is the basis of advertising.  In the 1960s Ericson, a top advertising guru in the USA, believed that sexuality and humour did not sell. He was wrong—as modern advertising testifies—and both sexuality and humour are manic archetypes.  Given the rampant consumerism of the present age, and the casual way in which sex is presented in newspapers and on TV—despite the acknowledged dangers of promiscuous sex—it is worthwhile considering whether hypomania may be a semi-deliberately induced state across the Western world.   Because of its association with consumption and "good times," hypomania could be described as the illness of success.  The Prozac generation has possibly increased the numbers who “suffer" from this condition.

           Stimulating the manic archetypes can induce hypomania. When people are hypomanic they express to some degree the manic archetypes so that, for example, spending leads to more spending and sexual activity leads to sexual disinhibition whether heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual. (Homosexuals are probably more hypomanic than the norm, tending to be more creative, for instance, and in the past at any rate, paranoid at exposure of their orientation.)  Expression of the manic archetypes reveals a person with good self esteem, who likes other people, spends money, is sexually disinhibited, funny, confident, charismatic, somewhat paranoid, has the work ethic, is more intellectual with a good memory, is creative and has ideas of grandeur. Paranoia is associated with schizophrenia whereas I believe it should be associated with mania. Drugs that mimic mania and cause paranoia are ecstasy, amphetamines, cocaine and alcohol.