Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and coauthor of the standard medical text, Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison is one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive 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. In An Unquiet Mind Jamison examines manic-depression 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. She has emerged with a memoir of enormous candor, vividness, and wisdom, one of those rare books that have the power to transform lives-and even save them. Paperback, 223 pages |