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Strangers to ourselves : unsettled minds and the stories that make us / Rachel Aviv.

By: Publication details: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022.Edition: First editionDescription: 276 pages ; 22 cmISBN:
  • 0374600848
  • 9780374600846
Other title:
  • Unsettled minds and the stories that make us
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 616.89/14 23/eng/20220622
LOC classification:
  • RC464 .A1 A95 2022
Contents:
Prologue: Rachel. "Someone better than me" -- Ray. "Am I really this? Am I not this? What am I?" -- Bapu. "Is this difficulty I am facing the lesson of total surrender?" -- Naomi. "You're not listening to me" -- Laura. "He could read my mind, as though I didn't need to explain anything" -- Epilogue: Hava. "Stranger to myself"
Summary: "In Strangers to Ourselves, a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman, celebrated as a saint, who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children's forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who, after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis, decides to go off her meds because she doesn't know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv's exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel-until it no longer does. Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives. Challenging the way we understand and talk about illness, her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind." --publisher's website.
Holdings
Item type Current library Shelving location Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Book Book NMC Library Stacks RC464 .A1 A95 2022 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 33039001511319

Includes bibliographical references (pages [239]-274)

Prologue: Rachel. "Someone better than me" -- Ray. "Am I really this? Am I not this? What am I?" -- Bapu. "Is this difficulty I am facing the lesson of total surrender?" -- Naomi. "You're not listening to me" -- Laura. "He could read my mind, as though I didn't need to explain anything" -- Epilogue: Hava. "Stranger to myself"

"In Strangers to Ourselves, a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman, celebrated as a saint, who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children's forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who, after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis, decides to go off her meds because she doesn't know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv's exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel-until it no longer does. Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives. Challenging the way we understand and talk about illness, her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind." --publisher's website.

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