but were still related to my field of study. Both are books that I would highly recommend.The first book I was easily able to reconcile taking the time to read because for my mood disorders class we have an assignment to read either a memoir or self-help book on the subject of mood disorders. As it turned out, a book that I had been wanting to read fit right into that category. The
book is called An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison. Ms. Jamison is a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and also one of the foremost authorities on manic-depressive illness. She also happens to have strugg
led with this illness for the better part of her life. I've read various accounts of manic-depression (more commonly referred to as bipolar disorder these days), often in the form of a memoir written by a child of someone who had suffered. This book was unlike any I had read before because not only was it from the perspective of the patient, it was also from the perspective of a clinician and expert on the disease. She writes about it with a clarity and understanding unlike anything I've read before, while at the same time describing t
he stunning depths of her cycles of depression and mania. It's a wonderful book for anyone interested in really learning about man
ic-depression, and it's also just a good read in general.
The second book that I have been working on whenever I get a little time for extra reading is called The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing by Bruce Perry. I had read some articles written by Dr. Perry last semester and always appreciated the way that he wrote about complex issues in a readable way. This book is no different. Dr. Perry is a long-time child psychiatrist, former Chief of Psychiatry at Texas Children's Hospital and currently Senior Fellow of The ChildTrauma Academy. This book chronicles some of the stories of the children he has worked with, children who have experienced profound traumas such as genocide, witness to murder, and extreme neglect. He was brought in to work with the Branch Davidian children in Waco during and after the whole stand-off. What's so interesting and unique about Dr. Perry's work is that he is very concerned with the neurobiology behind trauma. He explains in very user-friendly language about how the brain is affected by early traumas, and he discusses his methods for helping children to overcome this developmental damage. It's a topic that I'm very interested in, and it's great to read about his methods. Some of the accounts are very difficult to read because they're just so traumatic, but it's worth it for anyone interested in this subject.
