Description

By Graham H Shields

ISBN: 978-1-78382-036-8
Published: 2013
Pages: 174
Key Themes: Mental Health, Mental Illness, Schizophrenia, Religion

Description

A Madman for Christ covers the history of the authors schizophrenia using both serious, heavy diary extracts and humorous accounting of what the author was doing with himself whilst mad, whilst developing a theology of suffering and madness. It is an interwoven account, at times a dossier of letters. It is written for friends and family in explanation, but would be of great use to clergy, mental health practitioners with all of its phenomenology of mental illness, carers, service users, and both Christians and non believers alike.

About the Author

Graham H. Shields was born in 1964 in Kingston upon Hull but was brought up in Hornsea, East Yorkshire. He studied Civil Engineering at Imperial College, London, and then went on to work down a tunnel followed by designing small pumping manholes as well as a sewerage system. After this, he worked for an Anglican Church as a Pastoral Assistant before studying for an MSc at Lancaster, and then more study at Leeds University where his dissertation was entitled The Disposal and Reuse of Septic Tank and Pit Latrine Waste in Hargeisa Somaliland . He has suffered twenty years of schizophrenia, but has mostly recovered owing to the love shown to him by his mother and father, care offered by services and, significantly, his faith as a Christian. He lives in Pocklington in East Yorkshire and attends Pocklington Christian Fellowship as well as a Quaker Meeting when he can. He spent a year as a student at Cliff College, the Methodist Bible College.