Strangers to ourselves : unsettled minds and the stories that make us / Rachel Aviv.
2022
RC464.A1 A95 2022 (Mapit)
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Title
Strangers to ourselves : unsettled minds and the stories that make us / Rachel Aviv.
Author
Aviv, Rachel, author.
Edition
First edition.
ISBN
9780374600846 hardcover
0374600848 hardcover
0374600848 hardcover
Published
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022.
Copyright
©2022
Language
English
Description
276 pages ; 22 cm
Call Number
RC464.A1 A95 2022
Dewey Decimal Classification
616.89/14
Summary
"The highly anticipated debut from the acclaimed award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv compels us to examine how the stories we tell about mental illness shape our sense of who we are"-- Provided by publisher.
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 Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are.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.
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 Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are.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.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references.
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Table of 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 myself"
Epilogue: Hava "Stranger to myself".
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 myself"
Epilogue: Hava "Stranger to myself".