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Book Hidden Valley Road

Download or read book Hidden Valley Road written by Robert Kolker and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • ONE OF GQ's TOP 50 BOOKS OF LITERARY JOURNALISM IN THE 21st CENTURY • The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease. "Reads like a medical detective journey and sheds light on a topic so many of us face: mental illness." —Oprah Winfrey Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family? What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations. With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope.

Book Hidden Valley Road

    Book Details:
  • Author : Robert Kolker
  • Publisher : Random House Canada
  • Release : 2020-04-07
  • ISBN : 0735274460
  • Pages : 443 pages

Download or read book Hidden Valley Road written by Robert Kolker and published by Random House Canada. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NATIONAL BESTSELLER The heartrending story of a mid-century American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand--even cure--the disease. Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the dream. After World War II, Don's work with the US Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen in one family? What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institutes of Mental Health. Their shocking story also offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy and the premise of the schizophrenogenic mother, to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amidst profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. Unknown to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment and even the possibility of the eradication of the disease for future generations. With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love and hope.

Book Hidden Valley Road

Download or read book Hidden Valley Road written by Robert Kolker and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2020-04-09 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 12 children. 6 of them diagnosed with schizophrenia. Science's greatest hope in understanding the disease. ___________ *ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2020* *TIME 100 Must-Read Books Of 2020 Pick* *New York Times bestseller* *Selected as Oprah's Book Club Pick* 'Startlingly intimate' - The Sunday Times 'Grippingly told and brilliantly reported' - Mail on Sunday 'Unforgettable' - The Times For fans of Educated, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Three Identical Strangers Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins - aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony - and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after the other, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family? What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institutes of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother, to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amidst profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations. With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love and hope. 'An extraordinary case study and tour de force of reporting' - Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind 'This book tore my heart out. It is a revelation-about the history of mental health treatment, about trauma, foremost about family-and a more-than-worthy follow-up to Robert Kolker's brilliant Lost Girls' -Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of Dare Me and Give Me Your Hand 'Hidden Valley Road contains everything: scientific intrigue, meticulous reporting, startling revelations, and, most of all, a profound sense of humanity. It is that rare book that can be read again and again' -David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon

Book Winterkill

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ragnar Jonasson
  • Publisher : Orenda Books
  • Release : 2020-12-10
  • ISBN : 1913193454
  • Pages : 236 pages

Download or read book Winterkill written by Ragnar Jonasson and published by Orenda Books. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIV THE STUNNING FINAL INSTALMENT OF THE MULTI-MILLION-COPY BESTSELLING DARK ICELAND SERIES **Sunday Times BOOK OF THE MONTH** 'JÓnasson is an automatic must-read for me ... possibly the best Scandi writer working today' Lee Child 'Is this the best crime writer in the world today? ... Truly a master of his genre' The Times 'The engaging Ari Thor returns in this darkly claustrophobic tale. Perfect mid-winter reading' Ann Cleeves 'A stunningly atmospheric story. Ari ThÓr Arason returns in this pitch-perfect, beautifully paced crime novel ... Ragnar JÓnasson is at the top of his game, and a master of the genre' Will Dean ______________ A blizzard is approaching SiglufjÖrður, and that can only mean one thing... When the body of a nineteen-year-old girl is found on the main street of SiglufjÖrður, Police Inspector Ari ThÓr battles a violent Icelandic storm in an increasingly dangerous hunt for her killer ... The chilling, claustrophobic finale to the international bestselling Dark Iceland series. Easter weekend is approaching, and snow is gently falling in SiglufjÖrður, the northernmost town in Iceland, as crowds of tourists arrive to visit the majestic ski slopes. Ari ThÓr Arason is now a police inspector, but he's separated from his girlfriend, who lives in Sweden with their three-year-old son. A family reunion is planned for the holiday, but a violent blizzard is threatening and there is an unsettling chill in the air. Three days before Easter, a nineteen-year-old local girl falls to her death from the balcony of a house on the main street. A perplexing entry in her diary suggests that this may not be an accident, and when an old man in a local nursing home writes 'She was murdered' again and again on the wall of his room, there is every suggestion that something more sinister lies at the heart of her death... As the extreme weather closes in, cutting the power and access to SiglufjÖrður, Ari ThÓr must piece together the puzzle to reveal a horrible truth ... one that will leave no one unscathed. Chilling, claustrophobic and disturbing, Winterkill is a startling addition to the multi-million-copy bestselling Dark Iceland series and cements Ragnar JÓnasson as one of the most exciting and acclaimed authors in crime fiction. _______________ Praise for Ragnar JÓnasson'A sinister twisted tragedy' The Times 'If Iceland missed out on the Golden Age of crime writing, the country – and Jonasson – is certainly making up for it now' Sunday Times 'Outstanding ... Series fans will be sorry to see the last of Ari ThÓr' Publishers Weekly 'Jonasson's Dark Iceland novels are instant classics' William Ryan 'JÓnasson's punchy, straightforward prose is engrossing ... A diverting mystery' Foreword Reviews 'Consummate crime writing ... poignant and disturbing' New Books Magazine 'Chilling, creepy, perceptive, almost unbearably tense' Ian Rankin 'A tense, gripping read' Anthony Horowitz 'Icelandic noir of the highest order, with JÓnasson's atmospheric sense of place, and his heroine's unerring humanity shining from every page' Daily Mail 'Ragnar JÓna

Book A Road Back from Schizophrenia

Download or read book A Road Back from Schizophrenia written by Arnhild Lauveng and published by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-11-13 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For ten years, Arnhild Lauveng suffered as a schizophrenic, going in and out of the hospital for months or even a year at a time. A Road Back from Schizophrenia gives extraordinary insight into the logic (and life) of a schizophrenic. Lauveng illuminates her loss of identity, her sense of being controlled from the outside, and her relationship to the voices she heard and her sometimes terrifying hallucinations. Painful recollections of moments of humiliation inflicted by thoughtless medical professionals are juxtaposed with Lauveng’s own understanding of how such patients are outwardly irrational and often violent. She paints a surreal world—sometimes full of terror and sometimes of beauty—in which “the Captain” rules her by the rod and the school’s corridors are filled with wolves. When she was diagnosed with the mental illness, it was emphasized that this was a congenital disease, and that she would have to live with it for the rest of her life. Today, however, she calls herself a “former schizophrenic,” has stopped taking medication for the illness, and currently works as a clinical psychologist. Lauveng, though sometimes critical of mental health care, ultimately attributes her slow journey back to health to the dedicated medical staff who took the time to talk to her and who saw her as a person simply diagnosed with an illness—not the illness incarnate. A powerful memoir for sufferers, their families, and the professionals who care for them.

Book Paradise Beneath Her Feet

Download or read book Paradise Beneath Her Feet written by Isobel Coleman and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now with a new Preface and Afterword by the author “Outstanding . . . [Isobel Coleman] takes us into remote villages and urban bureaucracies to find the brave men and women working to create change in the Middle East.”—Los Angeles Times In this timely and important book, Isobel Coleman shows how Muslim women and men across the Middle East are working within Islam to fight for women’s rights in a growing movement of Islamic feminism. Journeying through Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Coleman introduces the reader to influential Islamic feminist thinkers and successful grassroots activists working to create economic, political, and educational opportunities for women. Their advocacy for women’s rights based on more progressive interpretations of Islam are critical to bridging the conflict between those championing reform and those seeking to oppress women in the name of religious tradition. Socially, culturally, economically, and politically, the future of the region depends on finding ways to accommodate human rights, and in particular women’s rights, with Islamic law. These reformers—and thousands of others—are the people leading the way forward. Featuring new material that addresses how the Arab uprisings and other recent events have affected the social and political landscape of the region, Paradise Beneath Her Feet offers a message of hope: Change is coming to the Middle East—and more often than not, it is being led by women. Praise for Paradise Beneath Her Feet “Clearly written, deeply moving, and wonderfully enlightening.”—Reza Aslan, author of No god but God “[An] engrossing portrait of real Muslim women that reveals how Islamic feminists . . . are working with and within the culture, rather than against it . . . to forge ‘a legitimate Islamic alternative to the current repressive system.’ Coleman doesn’t diminish the enormity of the struggle, but she argues convincingly that it might yet rewrite Islam’s future.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A nuanced view of Islam’s role in public life that is cautiously hopeful.”—The Economist “Eye-opening . . . Deeply religious, profoundly determined and modern in every way, these are twenty-first-century women bent on change. Hear them roar and see a future being born before our eyes.”—Booklist

Book I Like to Watch

    Book Details:
  • Author : Emily Nussbaum
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2019
  • ISBN : 0525508961
  • Pages : 386 pages

Download or read book I Like to Watch written by Emily Nussbaum and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The big picture : how Buffy the vampire slayer turned me into a TV critic -- The long con ("The Sopranos") -- The great divide : Norman Lear, Archie Bunker, and the rise of the bad fan -- Difficult women ("Sex and the city") -- Cool story, bro ("True detective," "Top of the lake" and "The fall") -- Last girl in Larchmont : the legacy of Joan Rivers -- Girls girls girls : "Girls," "Vanderpump rules," "House of cards and Scandal," "The Amy Schumer show," "Transparent" -- Confessions of the human shield -- How jokes won the election -- In praise of sex and violence : "Hannibal," "Law et order : SVU," "Jessica Jones," -- "The jinx," "The Americans" -- The price is right : what advertising does to TV -- In living color : Kenya Barris' -- Breaking the box : "Jane the virgin," "The comeback," "The good wife," "The newsroom," "Adventure time," "The leftovers," "High maintenance." -- Riot girl : Jenji Kohan's hot provocations -- A disappointed fan is still a fan ("Lost") -- Mr. big : how Ryan Murphy became the most powerful man in television.

Book Happy at Any Cost

Download or read book Happy at Any Cost written by Kirsten Grind and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-03-14 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters, “a startling portrait of one of our greatest tech visionaries, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh” (Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road), reporting on his short life, untimely death, and what that means for our pursuit of happiness. Tony Hsieh—CEO of Zappos, Las Vegas developer, and beloved entrepreneur—was famous for spreading happiness. He lived and breathed this philosophy, instilling an ethos of joy at his company, outlining his vision for a better workplace in his New York Times bestseller Delivering Happiness. He promoted a workplace where bosses treated employees like family members, where stress was replaced by playfulness, and where hierarchies were replaced with equality and collaboration. His outlook shaped how we work today. Hsieh also aspired to build his own utopian cities, pouring millions of dollars into real estate and small businesses, first in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada—where Zappos is headquartered—and then in Park City, Utah. He gave generously to his employees and close friends, including throwing notorious Zappos parities and organizing gatherings at his home, an Airstream trailer park. When Hsieh died suddenly in late 2022, the news shook the business and tech world. Wall Street Journal reporters Kirsten Grind and Katherine Sayre discovered Hsieh’s obsession with happiness masked his darker struggles with addiction, mental health, and loneliness. In the last year of his life, he spiraled out of control, cycling out of rehab and into the waiting arms of friends who enabled his worst behavior, even as he bankrolled them from his billion-dollar fortune. Happy at Any Cost sheds light on one of our most creative, yet vulnerable, business leaders. It’s about our intense need to find “happiness” at all costs, our misguided worship of entrepreneurs, the stigmas still surrounding mental health, and how the trappings of fame can mask all types of deeper problems. In turn, it reveals how we conceptualize success—and define happiness—in our modern age.

Book A Queen in Hiding

    Book Details:
  • Author : Sarah Kozloff
  • Publisher : Tor Books
  • Release : 2020-01-21
  • ISBN : 1250168538
  • Pages : 461 pages

Download or read book A Queen in Hiding written by Sarah Kozloff and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debut author Sarah Kozloff offers a breathtaking and cinematic epic fantasy of a ruler coming of age in A Queen in Hiding first in the quartet of The Nine Realms series. Four books. Four months. Nine Realms. Readers will be able to binge this amazing fantasy series with beautiful interlocking art across the spines of all four books. Orphaned, exiled and hunted, Cerulia, Princess of Weirandale, must master the magic that is her birthright, become a ruthless guerilla fighter, and transform into the queen she is destined to be. But to do it she must win the favor of the spirits who play in mortal affairs, assemble an unlikely group of rebels, and wrest the throne from a corrupt aristocracy whose rot has spread throughout her kingdom. The Nine Realms Series #1 A Queen in Hiding #2 The Queen of Raiders #3 A Broken Queen #4 The Cerulean Queen At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Book Divided Minds

Download or read book Divided Minds written by Pamela Spiro Wagner and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2006-08-08 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relates the stories of a pair of identical twin sisters, a schizophrenic and a psychiatrist, in an account that traces the deterioration of the favored sister into mental illness, and the other's emergence from her troubled sibling's shadow.

Book The Center Cannot Hold

Download or read book The Center Cannot Hold written by Elyn R. Saks and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2007-08-14 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A much-praised memoir of living and surviving mental illness as well as "a stereotype-shattering look at a tenacious woman whose brain is her best friend and her worst enemy" (Time). Elyn R. Saks is an esteemed professor, lawyer, and psychiatrist and is the Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, Psychiatry, and the Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California Law School, yet she has suffered from schizophrenia for most of her life, and still has ongoing major episodes of the illness. The Center Cannot Hold is the eloquent, moving story of Elyn's life, from the first time that she heard voices speaking to her as a young teenager, to attempted suicides in college, through learning to live on her own as an adult in an often terrifying world. Saks discusses frankly the paranoia, the inability to tell imaginary fears from real ones, the voices in her head telling her to kill herself (and to harm others), as well as the incredibly difficult obstacles she overcame to become a highly respected professional. This beautifully written memoir is destined to become a classic in its genre.

Book Summary of Magic Words by Tim David

Download or read book Summary of Magic Words by Tim David written by QuickRead and published by QuickRead.com. This book was released on with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn the secrets of communication to influence, inspire, and motivate those around you to get the results you want in both your personal and professional life. Parents, managers, teachers, and CEOs all have one thing in common: they struggle to motivate those around them. How many times do you have to argue with your teenage son to clean his room? Or how many times do you struggle to get your employees to meet their deadlines? These are common struggles that everyone experiences, so how can you change the behavior of those around you and get them to do what you want? By simply communicating with them! In fact, there are seven magic words that Tim David has discovered that will persuade and motivate others to get things done. Throughout Magic Words, you’ll learn how to combat common excuses like “I don’t know” or “I want to help you, but I can’t.” You’ll also learn the importance of learning someone’s name and why people named Cathy prefer to drink Coke over Pepsi. Want more free books like this? Download our app for free at https://www.QuickRead.com/App and get access to hundreds of free book and audiobook summaries. DISCLAIMER: This book summary is meant as a preview and not a replacement for the original work. If you like this summary please consider purchasing the original book to get the full experience as the original author intended it to be. If you are the original author of any book on QuickRead and want us to remove it, please contact us at [email protected].

Book Surviving My Birthright

    Book Details:
  • Author : Casey Hammer
  • Publisher : CreateSpace
  • Release : 2015-10-06
  • ISBN : 9781517534363
  • Pages : 330 pages

Download or read book Surviving My Birthright written by Casey Hammer and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-10-06 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a revealing and inspirational memoir by Casey Hammer, sole granddaughter of the American billionaire, industrialist, art collector and philanthropist Armand Hammer. SURVIVING MY BIRTHRIGHT is a story of hope, love, and the reclamation of empowerment. Casey's is a journey of discovery - recounting many years of blocked memories, violence, nightmares, hazardous behavior, guilt and feeling unworthy of joy or happiness. By taking responsibility for her life, no longer being prepared to accept the role of victim and by facing the truth, Casey began to heal. Hopefully, her story will inspire many others to do the same.

Book The Good Son

    Book Details:
  • Author : You-Jeong Jeong
  • Publisher : Penguin
  • Release : 2018-06-05
  • ISBN : 0525503749
  • Pages : 322 pages

Download or read book The Good Son written by You-Jeong Jeong and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Ingeniously twisted.” —Entertainment Weekly, “Must List” “Will leave even the most seasoned crime fiction readers guessing.” —CrimeReads "[Jeong] maintains suspense about her inhuman-seeming protagonist's fate until the bitter end.” —The Wall Street Journal Finalist for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’s “Summer Reads” Book Club The Talented Mr. Ripley meets The Bad Seed in this breathless, chilling psychological thriller by the #1 bestselling novelist known as “Korea's Stephen King” Who can you trust if you can't trust yourself? Early one morning, twenty-six-year-old Yu-jin wakes up to a strange metallic smell, and a phone call from his brother asking if everything's all right at home – he missed a call from their mother in the middle of the night. Yu-jin soon discovers her murdered body, lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs of their stylish Seoul duplex. He can't remember much about the night before; having suffered from seizures for most of his life, Yu-jin often has trouble with his memory. All he has is a faint impression of his mother calling his name. But was she calling for help? Or begging for her life? Thus begins Yu-jin's frantic three-day search to uncover what happened that night, and to finally learn the truth about himself and his family. A shocking and addictive psychological thriller, The Good Son explores the mysteries of mind and memory, and the twisted relationship between a mother and son, with incredible urgency. Named a Must-Read Book of the Summer by Elle, Entertainment Weekly, Vulture, Bustle, CrimeReads, Lit Hub, The Millions, Electric Literature, and Brit + Co

Book Troubled

Download or read book Troubled written by Kenneth R. Rosen and published by Little A. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning journalist's breathtaking mosaic of the tough-love industry and the young adults it inevitably fails. In the middle of the night, they are vanished. Each year thousands of young adults deemed out of control--suffering from depression, addiction, anxiety, and rage--are carted off against their will to remote wilderness programs and treatment facilities across the country. Desperate parents of these "troubled teens" fear it's their only option. The private, largely unregulated behavioral boot camps break their children down, a damnation the children suffer forever. Acclaimed journalist Kenneth R. Rosen knows firsthand the brutal emotional, physical, and sexual abuse carried out at these programs. He lived it. In Troubled, Rosen unspools the stories of four graduates on their own scarred journeys through the programs into adulthood. Based on three years of reporting and more than one hundred interviews with other clients, their parents, psychologists, and health-care professionals, Troubled combines harrowing storytelling with investigative journalism to expose the disturbing truth about the massively profitable, sometimes fatal, grossly unchecked redirection industry. Not without hope, Troubled ultimately delivers an emotional, crucial tapestry of coming of age, neglect, exploitation, trauma, and fraught redemption.

Book The Mind and the Moon

Download or read book The Mind and the Moon written by Daniel Bergner and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A profound and powerful work of essential reporting." —The New York Times Book Review An important—and intimate—interrogation of how we treat mental illness and how we understand ourselves In the early 1960s, JFK declared that science would take us to the moon. He also declared that science would make the “remote reaches of the mind accessible” and cure psychiatric illness with breakthrough medications. We were walking on the moon within the decade. But today, psychiatric cures continue to elude us—as does the mind itself. Why is it that we still don’t understand how the mind works? What is the difference between the mind and the brain? And given all that we still don’t know, how can we make insightful, transformative choices about our psychiatric conditions? When Daniel Bergner’s younger brother was diagnosed as bipolar and put on a locked ward in the 1980s, psychiatry seemed to have achieved what JFK promised: a revolution of chemical solutions to treat mental illness. Yet as Bergner’s brother was deemed a dire risk for suicide and he and his family were told his disorder would be lifelong, he found himself taking heavy doses of medications with devastating side effects. Now, in recounting his brother’s journey alongside the gripping, illuminating stories of Caroline, who is beset by the hallucinations of psychosis, and David, who is overtaken by depression, Bergner examines the evolution of how we treat our psyches. He reveals how the pharmaceutical industry has perpetuated our biological view of the mind and our drug-based assumptions about treatment—despite the shocking price paid by many patients and the problematic evidence of drug efficacy. And he takes us into the pioneering labs of today’s preeminent neuroscientists, sharing their remarkably candid reflections and fascinating new theories of treatment. The Mind and the Moon raises profound questions about how we understand ourselves and the essential human divide between our brains and our minds. This is a book of thought-provoking reframings, delving into the science—and spirit—of our psyches. It is about vulnerability and personal dignity, the terrifying choices confronted by families and patients, and the prospect of alternatives. In The Mind and the Moon, Bergner beautifully explores how to seek a deeper engagement with ourselves and one another—and how to find a better path toward caring for our minds.

Book Healing

    Book Details:
  • Author : Thomas Insel, MD
  • Publisher : National Geographic Books
  • Release : 2022-02-22
  • ISBN : 0593298047
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book Healing written by Thomas Insel, MD and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold, expert, and actionable map for the re-invention of America’s broken mental health care system. “Healing is truly one of the best books ever written about mental illness, and I think I’ve read them all." —Pete Earley, author of Crazy As director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas Insel was giving a presentation when the father of a boy with schizophrenia yelled from the back of the room, “Our house is on fire and you’re telling me about the chemistry of the paint! What are you doing to put out the fire?” Dr. Insel knew in his heart that the answer was not nearly enough. The gargantuan American mental health industry was not healing millions who were desperately in need. He left his position atop the mental health research world to investigate all that was broken—and what a better path to mental health might look like. In the United States, we have treatments that work, but our system fails at every stage to deliver care well. Even before COVID, mental illness was claiming a life every eleven minutes by suicide. Quality of care varies widely, and much of the field lacks accountability. We focus on drug therapies for symptom reduction rather than on plans for long-term recovery. Care is often unaffordable and unavailable, particularly for those who need it most and are homeless or incarcerated. Where was the justice for the millions of Americans suffering from mental illness? Who was helping their families? But Dr. Insel also found that we do have approaches that work, both in the U.S. and globally. Mental illnesses are medical problems, but he discovers that the cures for the crisis are not just medical, but social. This path to healing, built upon what he calls the three Ps (people, place, and purpose), is more straightforward than we might imagine. Dr. Insel offers a comprehensive plan for our failing system and for families trying to discern the way forward. The fruit of a lifetime of expertise and a global quest for answers, Healing is a hopeful, actionable account and achievable vision for us all in this time of mental health crisis.