Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind

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The book “An Unquiet Mind” by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison outlines her journey in the psychological world while dealing with her illness, manic-depressive otherwise known as bipolar 1, as described in the DSM IV. She talks about her manic and depressive episodes that caused her to fly through her undergraduate and graduate studies at UCLA. She dealt with her illness, the death of a loved one, and her overwhelming stress levels she gains from becoming a tenure professor. I find the book to be riveting, in how it encases mental illness as a good and bad thing rather than an “illness”. The way that Dr. Jamison was able to find success and love in her turmoil filled life shows how there is hope for anyone that suffers from a mental illness. Even before I had read this book, I had always believed that people with a mental illness should work within the field. The themes that this book encomposes is the idea of love and “rotten luck”. …show more content…

Whether it is from her family, her first boyfriend, husband and her string of lovers, Dr. Jamison is surrounded by constant love, even in her darkest, depressive episodes. Her illness had caused her to love more, as she mentioned more than once in the book, causing her to fall deeply and fast for people. She fell for people who were kind and intellectual and seen her at her best and her worst. She had many friends that stayed with her throughout her life, in pre-diagnosis and even during her suicide attempt. Something that she mentioned was “No amount of love can cure madness or unblacken one’s dark moods. Love can help, it can make the pain more tolerable, but, always , one is beholden to medication that may or may not always work and may or may not be bearable” ( Jamison

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