Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness - Softcover

Kay R. Jamison

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330528076 ISBN 13: 9780330528078

Publisher: Picador USA, 2011

Synopsis

Dr Kay Redfield Jamison is one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive illness. She has also experienced it first-hand. For even while she was pursuing her career in academic medicine, she was affected by the same exhilarating highs and catastrophic depressions that afflicted many of her patients. An "Unquiet Mind" is a memoir of enormous candour, courage, wit and wisdom, which examines manic depression from the dual perspectives of the healer and the healed, revealing both its terrors and its cruel allure. First published fifteen years ago, it remains the definitive book on manic depression. "It stands alone in the literature of manic depression for its bravery, brilliance and beauty" (Oliver Sacks). "Affecting, honest, touching". (Will Self).

About this title

Review

From Kay Redfield Jamison - an international authority on manic-depressive illness, and one of the few women who are full professors of medicine at American Universities - a remarkable personal testimony: the revelation of her own struggle since adolescence with manic depression, and how it shaped her life. With vivid prose and wit, she takes us into the fascinating and dangerous territory of this form of madness - a world in which one pole can be the alluring dark land ruled by what Byron called the "melancholy star of the imagination," and the other a desert of depression and, all too frequently, death.

From the Publisher

"It stands alone in the literature of manic depression for its bravery, brilliance and beauty."
--Oliver Sacks

"The most emotionally moving book I've ever read about emotions."
--William Safire, The New York Times Magazine

"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

"Written with poetic and moving sensitivity ... a rare and insightful view of mental illness from inside the mind of a trained specialist."
--Time

"A distinguished addition to the literature of mental illness, worthy of comparison to the classics in the genre, such as William Styron's Darkness Visible."
--Newark Star-Ledger

Edition details

• Publisher: Picador USA
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0330528076
• ISBN 13: 9780330528078
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240