Synopses & Reviews
In her bestselling classic,
An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison changed the way we think about moods and madness.
Dr. Jamison is one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive (bipolar) illness; she has also experienced it firsthand. For even while she was pursuing her career in academic medicine, Jamison found herself succumbing to the same exhilarating highs and catastrophic depressions that afflicted many of her patients, as her disorder launched her into ruinous spending sprees, episodes of violence, and an attempted suicide.
Here Jamison examines bipolar illness from the dual perspectives of the healer and the healed, revealing both its terrors and the cruel allure that at times prompted her to resist taking medication. An Unquiet Mind is a memoir of enormous candor, vividness, and wisdom.
Review
"What makes this account of the author's life-long struggle with manic depressive illness so gripping — and so important — is that she is both victim and healer. As a professor of psychiatry at UCLA and Johns Hopkins, Kay Jamison treated manic depression in her patients, studied its causes and effects, and wrote award-winning papers and textbooks on the topic. But until this memoir, she never spoke publicly about her own experience of the disease. From her late teenage years, Jamison found herself alternating between exhilarating highs and terrible black depressions. In her mildly manic states she found herself vastly productive and creative, enjoying higher energy, greater concentration, and magnified self-confidence. In her depression she became suicidal. While lithium helped restrain her mood swings, for years Jamison was loathe to live mundanely, until psychotherapy convinced her that without the drug she would soon be dead or hopelessly insane. Neither preachy nor aggrieved, this book is tough-minded but gently written." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Review
"An invaluable memoir of manic depression, at once medically knowledgeable, deeply human and beautifully written....at times poetic, at times straightforward, always unashamedly honest." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Stands alone in the literature of manic-depression for its bravery, brilliance and beauty." Oliver Sacks
Review
"Jamison's [strength] is in the gutsy way she has made her disease her life's work and in her brilliant ability to convey its joys and its anguish....Extraordinary." Washington Post Book World
Review
"The most emotionally moving book I've ever read about the emotions." The New York Times Magazine
Review
"Written with poetic and moving sensitivity....a rare and insightful view of mental illness from inside the mind of a trained specialist." Time
Review
"Enlighting....eloquent and profound." San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"Brave, insightful, richly textured and chillingly authentic." Boston Globe
Review
"Piercingly honest....Jamison's literary coming-out is a mark of courage." People
Synopsis
As a founder of UCLA's Affective Disorder Clinic and a co-author of a standard medical text, Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison may be the foremost authority on manic-depressive illness. She is also one of its survivors. And it is this dual perspective — as healer and healed — that makes Jamison's memoir so lucid, learned, and profoundly affecting.
Even as she was pursuing her psychiatric training, Jamison found herself succumbing to the exhilarating highs and paralyzing lows that afflicted many of her patients. Though the disorder brought her seemingly boundless energy and mercurial creativity, it also propelled her into spending sprees, episodes of violence, and an attempt at suicide.
Powerfully candid, exceptionally wise, An Unquiet Mind is one of those rare books that has the power to transform lives — and even save them.
Synopsis
From a leading international authority on manic-depressive illness--and one of only a handful of women who are full professors of medicine--comes a remarkable personal testimony: the revelation of her own struggle since childhood with manic-depression, and how it has shaped her life.
About the Author
Kay Redfield Jamison is the Dalio Family Professor in Mood Disorders and Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is codirector of the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center and a member of the governing board of the National Network of Depression Centers. She is also Honorary Professor of English at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the author of the national bestsellers
An Unquiet Mind and
Night Falls Fast, as well as
Touched with Fire, Exuberance, and
Nothing Was the Same. Dr. Jamison is the coauthor of the standard medical text on bipolar illness,
Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression, and the recipient of numerous national and international literary and scientific honors, including a MacArthur Award. In 2010 she married Thomas Traill, a cardiologist and Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins.
From the Trade Paperback edition.