In Touched with Fire, Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychiatrist, turned a mirror on the creativity so often associated with mental illness. In this book she turns that mirror on herself. With breathtaking honesty she tells of her own manic depression, the bitter costs of her illness, and its paradoxical benefits: "There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness and terror involved in this kind of madness.... It will never end, for madness carves its own reality." This is one of the best scientific autobiographies ever written, a combination of clarity, truth, and insight into human character. "We are all, as Byron put it, differently organized," Jamison writes. "We each move within the restraints of our temperament and live up only partially to its possibilities." Jamison's ability to live fully within her limitations is an inspiration to her fellow mortals, whatever our particular burdens may be. --Mary Ellen Curtin


From Publishers Weekly
Jamison's memoir springs from her dual perspective as both a psychiatric expert in manic depression and a sufferer of the disease. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This incredibly insightful work chronicles the life of a psychologist and professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University who suffers from manic depression. Jamison began experiencing mood swings during adolescence but, despite her education and training, did not seek help until she had completed her doctorate and began teaching at UCLA. Like so many others suffering from manic depression, she felt initially that the depressions were only passing phases she'd have to work out herself. She experienced the manic phases as great periods of creativity and accomplishment and feared they would be deadened by using medication. (In an earlier book, Touched with Fire, LJ 2/15/93, Jamison explored the relationship between manic depression and creativity.) Jamison finally comes to grips with her illness and recognizes the importance of medication used in conjunction with psychotherapy. This combination of treatment controls her illness and has enabled her to succeed. Her story and writing style are both inspirational and educational. Highly recommended for all libraries.Jennifer Amador, Central State Hosp. Medical Lib., Petersburg, Va.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Oliver Sacks, author of An Anthropologist on Mars
Jamison's book gripped me from the first page. An Unquiet Mind stands alone in the literature of manic-depression for its bravery, brilliance, and beauty.


The New York Times Book Review
invaluable memoir . . . medically knowledgeable, deeply human and beautifully written . . .


From Booklist
Psychologist Jamison's controversial Touched with Fire (1993) explored the hypothetical link between artistic creativity and mood disorders, speculating that manic-depressive illness, which may be inherited, somehow enables art while ravaging the artist. Perhaps written in response to opponents of biological psychiatry and accusations of romanticizing the creative possibilities of serious mental illness, her new book recounts her own frightening experience as a manic depressive--a condition she regards as genetically rooted and has publicly disclosed only recently because of her professional position. Although Jamison illuminates the disorder's addictive aspects (which stem from the unusual clarity of thought and increased capabilities it can cause in the manic phase), much of her memoir recalls the horrors of intense depression, which often lead to suicide attempts, as indeed they did in her case ("My body is uninhabitable," she recalls feeling, "raging and weeping and full of destruction and wild energy gone amok" ). Her intermittent refusals to continue prescribed medication cost her relationships and threatened her sanity, but finally, she accepted a Lithium-dependent, relatively stable life. Her account is an act of both personal and professional bravery. Whitney Scott


From Book News, Inc.
A psychiatry professor, author, and recipient of numerous national and international scientific awards describes her own struggle since adolescence with manic-depressive illness and recounts how it has shaped her life. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

ANNOTATION

First-person account of manic-depression.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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 has shaped her life. Vividly, directly, with candor, wit, and simplicity, 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. A moving and exhilarating memoir by a woman whose furious determination to learn the enemy, to use her gifts of intellect to make a difference, led her to become, by the time she was forty, a world authority on manic-depression, and whose work has helped save countless lives.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Jamison's memoir springs from her dual perspective as both a psychiatric expert in manic depression and a sufferer of the disease. (Oct.)

Library Journal

This incredibly insightful work chronicles the life of a psychologist and professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University who suffers from manic depression. Jamison began experiencing mood swings during adolescence but, despite her education and training, did not seek help until she had completed her doctorate and began teaching at UCLA. Like so many others suffering from manic depression, she felt initially that the depressions were only passing phases she'd have to work out herself. She experienced the manic phases as great periods of creativity and accomplishment and feared they would be deadened by using medication. (In an earlier book, Touched with Fire, LJ 2/15/93, Jamison explored the relationship between manic depression and creativity.) Jamison finally comes to grips with her illness and recognizes the importance of medication used in conjunction with psychotherapy. This combination of treatment controls her illness and has enabled her to succeed. Her story and writing style are both inspirational and educational. Highly recommended for all libraries.-Jennifer Amador, Central State Hosp. Medical Lib., Petersburg, Va.

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