Publisher’s write-up:
‘Strangers to Ourselves is a
compassionate, courageous and deeply researched look at the ways we talk about
and understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on
conversations as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, it follows people
who have found that psychiatric language has limitations when it comes to
explaining who they are, or that a diagnosis, while giving their experience a
name, creates a sense of a future life they wish to question or resist.
Rachel Aviv is known for her
radical empathy: she excels at seeing the world through the eyes of her fellow
human beings. Writing first about her own experience of being institutionalized
at the age of six, she introduces, among others, a mother recovering from
psychosis and rebuilding her relationship with her children; a woman who lives
in healing temples in Kerala, where she is celebrated as a saint; and a young
woman who, after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis, decides to
stop her medication because she doesn't know who she is without it.
Through startling connections,
intimate testimonies and diverse cultural perspectives, Aviv opens up fresh
ways of thinking about illness and the mind, in a book which is curious,
transformative, and above all, profoundly human.’
Strangers to Ourselves is a book
written by writer and author Rachel Aviv. The book comprises accounts of five
individuals going through severe mental illnesses and there is also a personal
touch from the author herself, given she herself was diagnosed with anorexia at
a young age.
The book talks about the starts
the book with her own story and her struggles over the years and then moves on
to the story of Ray, a person who is unable to accept the failure of his
business which leads him to an identity crisis and eventually, ends up suing
his doctor and other mental health professionals. The next is the story of Bapu
– a woman from an affluent family in India who frequently abandons her family
to seek refuge in religious institutions, and has schizophrenic visions of
interacting with god and the divine. The next is the story of Naomi – a woman
of African descent in the US, and the impact the societal circumstances has on
her, and the people around her (including the youngest of her family).
I appreciate the author trying to
narrate these complex mental situations through stories of people in the real
world than citing multiple research papers (I am not demeaning the latter, but
it is difficult for someone to relate to them from outside the field). She also
spoke of multiple approaches that were used in these situations, including
taking into account cultural considerations when talking of treatment. However,
there were also some very far-reaching claims, such as on the Zoroastrian
community in India having ‘westernised’ too fast which led to impacts on their
mental health.
On the whole, while the stories
themselves were interesting, I was not sure what was the point that the author
was trying to drive home. If it was that there are different mental health
diagnoses which could have dire impacts on people and also their entourage, we
are already aware of that. I did like the approach of the author of discussing these
people as individuals than ‘medical cases’, especially the detailed interviews
with people around these patients, such as the children of Bapu, the ex-partner
of Naomi, etc.
While I got to know some
interesting case studies, I was unsure of the title or the purpose of this book
and they often had very dire conclusions given their premise. On that note, I
would aware this book a rating of four on ten.
Have a nice day,
Andy
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