The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook


Bruce D. Perry - 2007
    In The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, he tells their stories of trauma and transformation through the lens of science, revealing the brain's astonishing capacity for healing. Deftly combining unforgettable case histories with his own compassionate, insightful strategies for rehabilitation, Perry explains what exactly happens to the brain when a child is exposed to extreme stress-and reveals the unexpected measures that can be taken to ease a child's pain and help him grow into a healthy adult. Through the stories of children who recover-physically, mentally, and emotionally-from the most devastating circumstances, Perry shows how simple things like surroundings, affection, language, and touch can deeply impact the developing brain, for better or for worse. In this deeply informed and moving book, Bruce Perry dramatically demonstrates that only when we understand the science of the mind can we hope to heal the spirit of even the most wounded child.

The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids


Alexandra Robbins - 2006
    Now, in The Overachievers, Robbins uses the same captivating style to explore how our high-stakes educational culture has spiraled out of control. During the year of her ten-year reunion, Robbins goes back to her high school, where she follows heart-tuggingly likeable students including "AP" Frank, who grapples with horrifying parental pressure to succeed; Audrey, whose panicked perfectionism overshadows her life; Sam, who worries his years of overachieving will be wasted if he doesn't attend a name-brand college; Taylor, whose ambition threatens her popular girl status; and The Stealth Overachiever, a mystery junior who flies under the radar. Robbins tackles teen issues such as intense stress, the student and teacher cheating epidemic, sports rage, parental guilt, the black market for study drugs, and a college admissions process so cutthroat that students are driven to suicide and depression because of a B. With a compelling mix of fast-paced narrative and fascinating investigative journalism, The Overachievers aims both to calm the admissions frenzy and to expose its escalating dangers.

The PDA Paradox: The Highs and Lows of My Life on a Little-Known Part of the Autism Spectrum


Harry Thompson - 2019
    The memoir brings to life Harry's past experiences and feelings, from his torrid time at school to the peaceful and meaningful moments when he is alone with a book, writing or creating YouTube videos.Eloquent and insightful, The PDA Paradox will bring readers to shock, laughter and tears through its overwhelming honesty. It is a turbulent memoir, but it ends with hope and a positive outlook to the future.

Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness


Pete Earley - 2006
    But it was only when his own son-in the throes of a manic episode-broke into a neighbor's house that he learned what happens to mentally ill people who break a law. This is the Earley family's compelling story, a troubling look at bureaucratic apathy and the countless thousands who suffer confinement instead of care, brutal conditions instead of treatment, in the "revolving doors" between hospital and jail. With mass deinstitutionalization, large numbers of state mental patients are homeless or in jail-an experience little better than the horrors of a century ago. Earley takes us directly into that experience-and into that of a father and award-winning journalist trying to fight for a better way.

American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America's Deadliest Drug Epidemic


John Temple - 2015
    From a fortress-like former bank building, American Pain's doctors distributed massive quantities of oxycodone to hundreds of customers a day, mostly traffickers and addicts who came by the vanload. Inked muscle-heads ran the clinic's security. Former strippers operated the pharmacy, counting out pills and stashing cash in garbage bags. Under their lab coats, the doctors carried guns and it was all legal sort of. American Pain was the brainchild of Chris George, a 27-year-old convicted drug felon. The son of a South Florida home builder, Chris George grew up in ultra-rich Wellington, where Bill Gates, Springsteen, and Madonna kept houses. Thick-necked from weightlifting, he and his twin brother hung out with mobsters, invested in strip clubs, brawled with cops, and grinned for their mug shots. After the housing market stalled, a local doctor clued in the brothers to the burgeoning underground market for lightly regulated prescription painkillers. In Florida, pain clinics could dispense the meds, and no one tracked the patients. Seizing the opportunity, Chris George teamed up with the doctor, and word got out. Just two years later Chris had raked in $40 million, and 90 percent of the pills his doctors prescribed flowed north to feed the rest of the country's insatiable narcotics addiction. Meanwhile, hundreds more pain clinics in the mold of American Pain had popped up in the Sunshine State, creating a gigantic new drug industry. American Pain chronicles the rise and fall of this game-changing pill mill, and how it helped tip the nation into its current opioid crisis, the deadliest drug epidemic in American history. The narrative swings back and forth between Florida and Kentucky, and is populated by a gaudy and diverse cast of characters. This includes the incongruous band of wealthy bad boys, thugs and esteemed physicians who built American Pain, as well as penniless Kentucky clans who transformed themselves into painkiller trafficking rings. It includes addicts whose lives were devastated by American Pain's drugs, and the federal agents and grieving mothers who labored for years to bring the clinic's crew to justice."

Note to Self: 30 Women on Hardship, Humiliation, Heartbreak, and Overcoming It All


Andrea J. Buchanan - 2008
     Life rarely works out exactly as we plan. Rejection by a cherished friend, the onset of an unexpected illness, struggle with body image and self-perception -- these experiences may challenge us, but our triumphs come to define us. We find comfort, joy, tears, and laughter in the wisdom, insight, and empathy we gain. In Note to Self, thirty dynamic women share their inspirational stories with writer, director, and television and film producer Andrea Buchanan. Celebrities such as Grammy Award-winning rock star Sheryl Crow and Emmy Award-winning actress Camryn Manheim join stuntwoman Stacy Courtney, football player Katie Hnida, seventy- year-old HIV-positive grandmother Beverly London, and alcoholic-turned-interventionist Candy Finnigan to reflect on their unforgettable stories of redemption. Punctuated by tears and laughter, these poignant tales are full of incredible strength, invaluable knowledge, insurmountable odds, helpful survival instincts, amazing willpower, humiliation -- sometimes on a national level -- and a hefty dose of humor. These unstoppable women emerged stronger, wiser, and more successful from the often painful and humbling turning points in their lives. While none of their unique stories will fit neatly on a sticky note you can tape to your wall, each of them carries an indelible message that can.

Catch 22: My Battles, in Hockey and Life


Rick Vaive - 2020
    He did it three years in a row (only two others have scored 50 since) before being unceremoniously stripped of his captaincy and traded out of town, and he did it for a promising team that was nonetheless largely stuck at the bottom of the standings. So why isn't his number 22 hanging from the rafters of the Leafs' rink and his name as revered in Leafs lore as Gilmour, Sundin and Clark?You could blame it on a team that lost far more than it won. You could blame Harold Ballard and his erratic ownership. You could blame the fans, the media...Rick Vaive doesn't blame anybody. Sometimes, life just doesn't go your way. He'd know. Growing up in a household plagued by alcoholism, the gifted young hockey player took shelter in the company of his grandmother and a blind and severely disabled uncle. Rick learned quickly that there are more valuable things in life than hockey. Even after his promising coaching career stopped dead when it ran into Don Cherry in Mississauga--one of the worst seasons in Ontario junior hockey history--he still doesn't point fingers. Life is too sweet for regrets, but learning that lesson can be one hell of a ride.

The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President


Bandy X. LeePhilip G. Zimbardo - 2017
    The public has thus been left to wonder whether he is mad, bad, or both.In THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP, twenty-seven psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health experts argue that, in Mr. Trump’s case, their moral and civic “duty to warn” America supersedes professional neutrality. They then explore Trump’s symptoms and potentially relevant diagnoses to find a complex, if also dangerously mad, man.Philip Zimbardo and Rosemary Sword, for instance, explain Trump’s impulsivity in terms of “unbridled and extreme present hedonism.” Craig Malkin writes on pathological narcissism and politics as a lethal mix. Gail Sheehy, on a lack of trust that exceeds paranoia. Lance Dodes, on sociopathy. Robert Jay Lifton, on the “malignant normality” that can set in everyday life if psychiatrists do not speak up.His madness is catching, too. From the trauma people have experienced under the Trump administration to the cult-like characteristics of his followers, he has created unprecedented mental health consequences across our nation and beyond.It’s not all in our heads. It’s in his."There will not be a book published this fall more urgent, important, or controversial than The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump...profound, illuminating and discomforting" —Bill Moyers

Summary - Hillbilly Elegy: By James David Vance - A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis


e-Summary - 2016
    The book is written by JD (James David by author's full name) Vance and in it the author tries to describe the overall life and struggles of people in post-industrial time in the United States. This book deals with the problems of white working-class and the book is not just some book where the author tries to describe lives of ordinary white people. The book is actually a memento and a message to the readers; in it Vance describes his life and his starts, especially growing up while being poor in Ohio. We can find out about this when we find out that Vance's family is of Scottish-Irish descent and that his ancestors have longer history of poverty and hard work that they need to endure in order to survive the hard times that were at hand. We also find out that since the 18th century many Scottish-Irish people were working as plantation workers, as miners and/or as millworkers. Because these people worked only the hardest jobs that hardly anyone else would take many people belittled them. Words like 'white trash, redneck' and/or 'hillbilly' were unfortunately a common everyday word for those people. Hillbilly Elegy is a fascinating work, not because it was written based on a true story but because it was written from a man who lived 'through' his story. The fact that the entire book contains a message is, of course, welcoming plus and something we want from literature of this genre. Here Is A Preview Of What You Will Get: In Hillbilly Elegy, you will get a summarized version of the book.In Hillbilly Elegy, you will find the book analyzed to further strengthen your knowledge.In Hillbilly Elegy, you will get some fun multiple choice quizzes, along with answers to help you learn about the book.Get a copy, and learn everything about Hillbilly Elegy.

The Price of Silence: A Mom's Perspective on Mental Illness


Liza Long - 2014
    When she heard about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, her first thought was, What if my son does that someday? She wrote an emotional response to the tragedy, which the Boise State University online journal posted as I Am Adam Lanza s Mother. The post went viral, receiving 1.2 million Facebook likes, nearly 17,000 tweets, and 30,000 emails.Now, in "The Price of Silence "she takes a devastating look at how we address mental illness, especially in children, who are funneled through a system of education, mental health care, and juvenile detention that leads far too often to prison. In the end she asks one central question: if there s a poster child for cancer, why can t there be one for mental illness? The answer: the stigma. Liza Long is speaking in a way that we cannot help but hear, and she won t stop until something changes."

My Heart Can't Even Believe It: A Story of Science, Love, and Down Syndrome


Amy Silverman - 2016
    And that is the case with My Heart Can't Even Believe It, by journalist, blogger, and NPR contributor Amy Silverman. Amy bravely looks at her life, before and after her daughter Sophie was born, and reflects on her transformation from "a spoiled, self-centered brat," who used words like retard and switched lines at the Safeway to avoid a bagger with special needs, into the mother of a kid with Down syndrome and all that her new identity entails. She describes her evolution as gradual, one built by processing her fears and facing questions both big and small about Sophie, Down syndrome, and her place in the world. Funny, touching, and honest, this wonderful book looks at a daughter and her power to change minds and fill hearts with love so deep.

Why Me?


Sarah Burleton - 2010
    Instinctively, I reached out my arms to stop my fall and ended up grabbing the live fence. My hands clamped around the thin wires, and my body collapsed to the ground as the electricity coursed through it. I opened my eyes and saw my mother standing over me with the strangest smile on her face. “Oh, my God, I’m going to die!” I thought in panic.Imagine never being able to close your eyes and remember the feel of your mother’s arms wrapped around you. Now imagine closing your eyes and remembering your mother’s tears splashing down on your face as she is on top of you, crying as she is trying to choke you to death. My mother left me these memories and many more during my traumatic childhood. After many years of struggling with trying to understand “Why Me?” I took back control of my life and started saying, “It was me, now what am I going to do?” The answer is my book, “Why Me?”. It is my childhood journey through the terrors of physical and mental abuse from first grade until the day I moved out. It is my way of letting the world know what was really going on behind closed doors.

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl


John Colapinto - 2000
    The case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine—and a total failure. As Nature Made Him tells the extraordinary story of David Reimer, who, when finally informed of his medical history, made the decision to live as a male. A macabre tale of medical arrogance, it is first and foremost a human drama of one man's—and one family's—amazing survival in the face of terrible odds.

High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society


Carl L. Hart - 2013
    At the same time, he was immersed in street life. Today he is a cutting-edge neuroscientist—Columbia University's first tenured African American professor in the sciences—whose landmark, controversial research is redefining our understanding of addiction.In this provocative and eye-opening memoir, he recalls his journey of self-discovery and weaves his past and present. Hart goes beyond the hype of the antidrug movement as he examines the relationship among drugs, pleasure, choice, and motivation, both in the brain and in society. His findings shed new light on common ideas about race, poverty, and drugs, and explain why current policies are failing.Though Hart escaped neighborhoods that were dominated by entrenched poverty and the knot of problems associated with it, he has not turned his back on his roots. Determined to make a difference, he tirelessly applies his scientific research to help save real lives. But balancing his former street life with his achievements today has not been easy—a struggle he reflects on publicly for the first time.A powerful story of hope and change, of a scientist who has dedicated his life to helping others, High Price will alter the way we think about poverty, race, and addiction—and how we can effect change.

Mad Mobs & Englishmen? Myths and Realities of the 2011 Riots


Steve Reicher - 2011