Book excerpt: This controversial new book describes how human behaviour - thoughts, emotions, actions and mental health - can be largely explained if we understand how people make sense of their world and how that framework of understanding has been learned. In this ground-breaking book, Peter Kinderman, presents a simple, but radical new model of mental well-being. Published following the publication of the new edition of the controversial, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the author challenges notions such as 'mental illness' and 'abnormal psychology' as old-fashioned, demeaning and invalid, and argues that diagnoses such as 'depression' and 'schizophrenia' are unhelpful. Kinderman argues that one consequence of our current obsession with a medical approach to human well-being and distress, is that human problems are too often merely diagnosed and treated, rather than understood. Written by an expert in his field, and accessible to all those interested in and affected by mental health issues, The New Laws of Psychology will change the way we define mental illness forever.