#### : Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought `Author:` Louis A. Sass `Availability:` ## Summary Louis A. Sass, a clinical psychologist and scholar of [[Phenomenology]], explores the deep parallels between **modernist [[Culture]]** and the **experience of schizophrenia**. He argues that certain features of modernist [[Art]], literature, and [[Philosophy]]—especially those associated with self-reflexivity, abstraction, and alienation—mirror the cognitive and perceptual disturbances found in psychosis. Sass challenges the traditional notion that [[Madness]] represents _a regression_ to primitive or irrational states. Instead, he presents schizophrenia as a **hyper-rational, hyper-reflective** condition—one in which the individual becomes trapped in excessive self-[[Awareness]], detachment, and intellectualisation. The schizophrenic, like the modernist artist, often exhibits a **loss of natural spontaneity**, a heightened consciousness of [[perception]] itself, and a sense of estrangement from ordinary reality. Drawing on thinkers such as **[[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]], Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Foucault**, as well as artists and writers like **[[Kafka]], Beckett, Joyce, and Picasso**, Sass shows how modernism and madness share a **crisis of representation**—a breakdown in the continuity between self and world. Both involve a disintegration of the taken-for-granted structures of [[Meaning]] that once anchored human experience. Ultimately, Sass suggests that modernism’s fragmentation, [[Irony]], and abstraction can be seen as cultural expressions of the same **existential dislocations** that appear, in more extreme form, within schizophrenia. The book thus becomes not only a psychological study but also a philosophical reflection on **modern consciousness itself**—its isolation, self-scrutiny, and loss of immediacy. --- ## Key Takeaways ## Quotes - ## Notes > [!info] > ![[Madness and Modernism.jpg]] `Concepts:` `Knowledge Base:` [[Books index]]