Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Cahalan tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen.

    Robbed of speech and bodily control, and despite her loving parents' best efforts to help her, Peyton Goddard suffered neglect and ongoing abuse by many who dismissed her as autistic and severely mentally retarded. Peyton's violent outbursts and bizarre, self-destructive behavior left her parents terrified at the prospect of having to institutionalize their daughter. No one could have imagined that she possessed a brilliant mind in her uncooperative body until her first opportunity to communicate electronically at age 22 when she typed "I AM INTLGENT," a breakthrough reminiscent of "The Miracle Worker." After two decades, mother and daughter are finally able to communicate, and Peyton goes on to graduate valedictorian from college. Her story challenges assumptions that any child, regardless of competence, can be less of a human being. Today Peyton is following through on her vow to be an advocate on behalf of other devalued people. Her inspirational life helps readers transcend stereotypes and join her in the radical notion that, as she says, "All people are vastly valuable. Treasure all because great is each."

    Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

    While smiling on the outside, however, inwardly Summers was consumed by anxiety. It wasn't until preeminent psychiatrist Dr. Eric Hollander appeared as a guest on Summers's Lifetime talk show that the source of his distress became clear: like an estimated 6 million Americans today--that's one in forty adults--Summers suffers the effects of obsessive compulsive disorder.Everything in Its Place has been written for the many functional people battling OCD in silence, people who do not identify with popular profiles of OCD sufferers as bizarre, mentally ill victims. Extending beyond a memoir, clinical study, or how-to manual, Summers's book explores positive aspects of the disorder that can actually foster success. For the millions of people who suspect their strange quirks are symptoms of the disorder, Summers clarifies the differences between superstition, caution, and real OCD. For those who have OCD and think they're alone in the world, he sets a positive example with his personal success. Informed by the latest research findings as well as the unique perspective of the doctor who made Summers's own symptoms manageable, Everything in Its Place is a book on OCD unlike any other.

    She soon discovers she has a talent for long-distance running and trains for her first marathon. . She loves it – and soon sets her sights on the 2005 Melbourne Marathon. When she finishes in under three hours and in third place, Vanessa is offered commercial sponsorships and attracts the attentions of elite coaches. Instead of enjoying her win however, she is driven to improve her performance. She pushes her body harder and further, determined to become the best runner she can be. Despite her increasing success and her own training as a physiotherapist she soon finds herself trapped in a spiral of extreme dieting and exercise in order to improve her performances and maintain her ‘fit and healthy’ look.Ignoring the growing concern of her family and friends, Vanessa denies there is anything unhealthy about her fitness training, until the day she finds her body has started rebelling against her …A compelling story about the dangers of overexercising and chasing perfection in a society that rewards and applauds the fastest and the fittest.

    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.

    

    From the October 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review.

    . . "A small seven-year-old boy who couldn't speak except to repeat weather forecasts and other people's words . . . A beautiful little girl of seven who had been brain damaged by terrible parental beatings and was so ashamed because she couldn't learn to read . . . A violently angry ten-year-old who had seen his stepmother murder his father and had been sent from one foster home to another . . . A shy twelve-year-old from a Catholic school which put her out when she became pregnant . . ."What do we matter?""Why do you care?"They were four problem children-put in Torey Hayden's class because no one else knew what to do with them. Together, with the help of a remarkable teacher who cared too much to ever give up, they became almost a family, able to give each other the love and understanding they had found nowhere else.

    At first, alcohol and pot, but quickly he spiraled into using cocaine, ketamine, crystal meth and eventually heroin.How could this wonderful son, loving brother, and star athlete lose himself to drugs? How could his parents be so clueless? How could his mother, the long-term head of a private school, be so blind?"Stagli vicino," an Italian recovering addict told the author. "Stay close--never leave him, even when he is most unlovable." This is not a book about saving a child. It is a book about what it means to stay close to a loved one gripped by addiction. It is about one son who came home and one mother who never gave up hope."Stay Close" is one mother's tough, honest, and intimate tale that chronicles her son's severe drug addiction, as it corroded all relationships from the inside out. It is a story of deep trauma and deep despair, but also of deep hope--and healing.Here is Libby Cataldi's story about dealing with addiction without withdrawing love, learning to trust again while remaining attuned to lies, and the cautious triumph of staying clean one day at a time.He told her, "Mom, never quit believing." And she didn't.

    With heart-wrenching honesty and humor, she shows the effects of bipolar disorder on the mind, body and soul of those who suffer from it. Despite Wendy's struggles, this is a not a book that brings the reader down, rather a road map for wellness and a vastly informative, yet entertaining, guided tour of bipolar disorder for those who don't understand it. With her perceptive self-awareness, the author is equal parts comedienne and educator, and she tells the unbelievable highs and lows of her story with a clear, grounded candor.

    She is intelligent, fearful, extremely anxious, and depressed. Her rage is poorly controlled and inappropriately expressed.Diagnostic Impression: Program for social recovery in a supportive and structured environment appears favorable.Life InsideIn 1967, three months before her sixteenth birthday, Mindy Lewis was sent to a state psychiatric hospital by court order. She had been skipping school, smoking pot, and listening to too much Dylan. Her mother, at a loss for what else to do, decided that Mindy remain in state custody until she turned eighteen and became a legal, law-abiding, "healthy" adult.Life Inside is Mindy's story about her coming-of-age during those tumultuous years. In honest, unflinching prose, she paints a richly textured portrait of her stay on a psychiatric ward—the close bonds and rivalries among adolescent patients, the politics and routines of institutional life, the extensive use of medication, and the prevalence of life-altering misdiagnoses. But this memoir also takes readers on a journey of recovery as Lewis describes her emergence into adulthood and her struggle to transcend the stigma of institutionalization. Bracingly told, and often terrifying in its truths, Life Inside is a life-affirming memoir that informs as it inspires.

    It begins with Sally’s visionary crack-up on the streets of Greenwich Village, and continues, among other places, in the out-of-time world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city’s most sweltering months. “I feel like I’m traveling and traveling with nowhere to go back to,” Sally says in a burst of lucidity while hurtling away toward some place her father could not dream of or imagine. Hurry Down Sunshine is the chronicle of that journey, and its effect on Sally and those closest to her–her brother and grandmother, her mother and stepmother, and, not least of all, the author himself. Among Greenberg’s unforgettable gallery of characters are an unconventional psychiatrist, an Orthodox Jewish patient, a manic Classics professor, a movie producer, and a landlord with literary dreams. Unsentimental, nuanced, and deeply humane, Hurry Down Sunshine holds the reader in a mesmerizing state of suspension between the mundane and the transcendent.

    Writing with compassion, humor, and a deft literary touch, Elias Aboujaoude, an expert on obsessive compulsive disorder and behavioral addictions, tells stories inspired by memorable patients he has treated, taking us from initial contact through the stages of the doctor-patient relationship. Into these interconnected vignettes Aboujaoude weaves his own personal experiences while presenting up-to-date, accessible medical information. Rich in both meaning and symbolism, Compulsive Acts is a journey of personal growth and hope that illuminates a fascinating yet troubling dimension of human experience as it explores a group of potentially disabling conditions that are too often suffered in silence and isolation.

    Recognizing her face, her voice, the meaning of her moods, and her facial expressions is crucial to survival. Dr. Christine Ann Lawson vividly describes how mothers who suffer from borderline personality disorder produce children who may flounder in life even as adults, futilely struggling to reach the safety of a parental harbor, unable to recognize that their borderline parent lacks a pier, or even a discernible shore. Four character profiles describe different symptom clusters that include the waif mother, the hermit mother, the queen mother, and the witch. Children of borderlines are at risk for developing this complex and devastating personality disorder themselves. Dr. Lawson's recommendations for prevention include empathic understanding of the borderline mother and early intervention with her children to ground them in reality and counteract the often dangerous effects of living with a "make-believe" mother. Some readers may recognize their mothers as well as themselves in this book. They will also find specific suggestions for creating healthier relationships. Addressing the adult children of borderlines and the therapists who work with them, Dr. Lawson shows how to care for the waif without rescuing her, to attend to the hermit without feeding her fear, to love the queen without becoming her subject, and to live with the witch without becoming her victim. A Jason Aronson Book