Related Issues
Reviews
Post New Review
Surviving Manic Depression: A Manual on Bipolar Disorder for Patients, Families, and Providers
Description
Drs. Torrey and Knable provide thorough, up-to-date coverage of all aspects of the disease, including a detailed description of symptoms (with many direct descriptions from patients themselves), risk factors, onset and cause, medications (including drugs still in the testing stage), psychotherapy, and rehabilitation, as well as information about how the disease affects children and adolescents. Here too are discussions of special problems related to manic depression, including alcohol and drug abuse, violent behavior, medication noncompliance, suicide, sex, AIDS, and confidentiality. Surviving Manic Depression also includes special features such as a listing of selected websites, books, videotapes, and other resources.
Reviews
Post New Review
The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide: What You and Your Family Need to Know
Description
Hard on the heels of Fuller Torrey and Michael B. Knable's excellent Surviving Manic Depression: A Manual on Bipolar Disorder for Patients, Families and Providers (LJ 1/02) comes another strong title. Both books cover the origins, symptoms, and treatments for bipolar disorder, with emphasis on current medications. The main difference between the two books is that the current title by Miklowitz (psychology, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder) is intended for patients. It spends a good deal of time on issues exclusive to the sufferer how to come to terms with the diagnosis, whom to confide in, and how to recognize one's own mood swings. More concise in its treatment of the issues just mentioned, Torrey and Knable's title is addressed to a more general audience, spends more time reviewing the scientific evidence concerning the origins of the disease, and has a much more useful resource list. On the whole, Surviving Manic Depression would be the first choice for most libraries, with Miklowitz's book recommended for patient education libraries and medium and large public libraries
Reviews
Post New Review
Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified: An Essential Guide for Understanding and Living with BPD
Description
According to Friedel, six million Americans suffer from the psychiatric disorder known as borderline personality disorder-and many of these people often go undiagnosed and live in the lonely fear that they simply lack willpower or self-confidence. Friedel, a distinguished clinical professor of psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University, steps in to explain this little-known and much-misunderstood disorder, and he offers not only information but hope-many people believe BPD isn't treatable, but Friedel says that there are effective treatments available. BPD, like many other psychiatric disorders, results from chemical imbalances in the brain, Friedel says. The emotional instability, impulsive behavior and impaired reasoning that often characterize BPD can thus be controlled with therapy and medication, though Friedel also stresses the importance of the patient's taking responsibility for following through on treatment. For readers who suspect that they or someone they love suffers from BPD, this guide is a good place to start learning how to find help.
Reviews
Post New Review
Lost in the Mirror, 2nd Edition: An Inside Look at Borderline Personality Disorder
Description
Persons with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have often been abused physically, psychologically, or sexually; most are women. Moskovitz describes variations of the condition and how it affects patient, family, and friends. The sufferer may experience guilt, self-hate, suicide, self-mutilation, and other symptoms and signs, and Moskovitz provides several patient histories to bring BPD to life. No case is more considerable than that of Sara, which Moskovitz parcels out in segments at the ends of chapters--a tactic that first seems artificial and confusing but cumulatively makes a greater impression than it would if presented whole. Moskovitz is especially adept with analogies, using everyday situations to clarify his points rather than just adorn the text. He imparts that while there is no drug just for BPD, some drugs help with specific symptoms, and he dispenses practical advice to family and professionals as well as patients.
Reviews
Post New Review
Shorter Term Treatments for Borderline Personality Disorders (Best Practices for Therapy)
Description
Persons with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have often been abused physically, psychologically, or sexually; most are women. Moskovitz describes variations of the condition and how it affects patient, family, and friends. The sufferer may experience guilt, self-hate, suicide, self-mutilation, and other symptoms and signs, and Moskovitz provides several patient histories to bring BPD to life. No case is more considerable than that of Sara, which Moskovitz parcels out in segments at the ends of chapters--a tactic that first seems artificial and confusing but cumulatively makes a greater impression than it would if presented whole. Moskovitz is especially adept with analogies, using everyday situations to clarify his points rather than just adorn the text. He imparts that while there is no drug just for BPD, some drugs help with specific symptoms, and he dispenses practical advice to family and professionals as well as patients.
Reviews
Post New Review
Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care about Has Borderline Personality Disorder
Description
Stop Walking on Eggshells: Coping When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder is a self-help guide that helps the family members and friends of individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) understand this self-destructive disorder and learn what they can do to cope with it and take care of themselves. It is designed to help them understand how the disorder affects their loved ones and recognize what they can do to get off the emotional roller coasters and take care of themselves.
Reviews
Post New Review
I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression
Description
When Terrence Real was studying to be a therapist, he accepted the notion that women suffered depression at rates several times that of men. Now he believes that conventional wisdom is wrong, that there has been a great cultural cover-up of depression in men. Real is convinced of the existence of a mental illness that is passed from fathers to sons in the form of rage, workaholism, distanced relationships from loved ones, and self-destructive behaviors ranging from stupid choices at work and in love to drug and alcohol abuse. Men reading I Don't Want to Talk About It will probably recognize themselves in every chapter, while women will recognize their partners--and, of course, both sexes will see their fathers in a new light.
Reviews
Post New Review
Prozac Nation
Description
Twenty-six-year-old Wurtzel, a former critic of popular music for New York and the New Yorker, recounts in this luridly intimate memoir the 10 years of chronic, debilitating depression that preceded her treatment with Prozac in 1990. After her parents' acrimonious divorce, Wurtzel was raised by her mother on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The onset of puberty, she recalls, also marked the onset of recurrent bouts of acute depression, sending her spiraling into episodes of catatonic despair, masochism and hysterical crying. Here she unsparingly details her therapists, hospitalizations, binges of sex and drug use and the paralyzing spells of depression which afflicted her in high school and as a Harvard undergraduate and culminated in a suicide attempt and ultimate diagnosis of atypical depression, a severe, episodic psychological disorder. The title is misleading, for Wurtzel skimps on sociological analysis and remains too self-involved to justify her contention that depression is endemic to her generation. By turns emotionally powerful and tiresomely solipsistic, her book straddles the line between an absorbing self-portrait and a coy bid for public attention.
Reviews
Post New Review
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
Description
The Noonday Demon examines depression in personal, cultural, and scientific terms. Drawing on his own struggles with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, doctors and scientists, policy makers and politicians, drug designers and philosophers, Andrew Solomon reveals the subtle complexities and sheer agony of the disease. He confronts the challenge of defining the illness and describes the vast range of available medications, the efficacy of alternative treatments, and the impact the malady has on various demographic populations -- around the world and throughout history. He also explores the thorny patch of moral and ethical questions posed by emerging biological explanations for mental illness. With uncommon humanity, candor, wit, and erudition, award-winning author Solomon takes readers on a journey of incom-parable range and resonance into the most pervasive of family secrets. His contribution to our understanding not only of mental illness but also of the human condition is truly stunning.
Reviews
Post New Review
When Words Are Not Enough
Description
Emphasizing women's family roles as well as their unique biological/hormonal sensitivities, Dr. Raskin explains contemporary integrated treatment options. Raskin pays special attention to how birth control, menstrual cycles, childbearing, and menopause impact treatment choices. Raskin empowers women to take an active approach in dealing with common side effects, including weight gain and diminished sexual responsiveness. Using revealing case studies, Raskin offers a wealth of hands-on advice.
Navigation
Back to Books and Other Media