The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing During the Change


Christiane Northrup - 2006
    Christiane Northrup has earned a place as one of America’s most trusted medical advisors.In The Wisdom of Menopause, she once again challenges convention with this inspiring look at one of the most commonly misunderstood female health issues. The “change” is not simply a collection of physical symptoms to be “fixed,” Dr. Northrup claims, but a mind/body revolution that brings the greatest opportunity for growth since adolescence. The choices a woman makes now–from the quality of her relationships to the quality of her diet–have the power to secure her health and well-being for the rest of her life. Through her personal story and many fascinating case histories, Dr. Northrup shows:• How menopause jump-starts changes in the brain, issuing a dramatic wake-up call to body, mind, and emotions• How to ensure the long-term health of breasts, bones, and heart• How the body adjusts naturally to changing hormones• Why bestselling drugs like Premarin may not be the best choice• How to deal with metabolism shifts, weight gain, sexual problems, and appearance issues• How to negotiate the challenges of “the empty nest” and midlife marriageAnd much more. In a book destined to be a classic, Dr. Northrup shows women how they can make menopause a time of personal empowerment and positive energy–emerging wiser, healthier, and stronger in both mind and body than ever before.

Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls


Mary Pipher - 1994
    Why were so many of them turning to therapy in the first place? Why had these lovely and promising human beings fallen prey to depression, eating disorders, suicide attempts, and crushingly low self-esteem? The answer hit a nerve with Pipher, with parents, and with the girls themselves. Crashing and burning in a “developmental Bermuda Triangle,” they were coming of age in a media-saturated culture preoccupied with unrealistic ideals of beauty and images of dehumanized sex, a culture rife with addictions and sexually transmitted diseases. They were losing their resiliency and optimism in a “girl-poisoning” culture that propagated values at odds with those necessary to survive.    Told in the brave, fearless, and honest voices of the girls themselves who are emerging from the chaos of adolescence, Reviving Ophelia is a call to arms, offering important tactics, empathy, and strength, and urging a change where young hearts can flourish again, and rediscover and reengage their sense of self.

The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction


Emily Martin - 1987
    Contrasting the views of medical science with those of ordinary women from diverse social and economic backgrounds, anthropologist Emily Martin presents unique fieldwork on American culture and uncovers the metaphors of economy and alienation that pervade women's imaging of themselves and their bodies. A new preface examines some of the latest medical ideas about women's reproductive cycles.

The Camera My Mother Gave Me


Susanna Kaysen - 2001
    It is an extraordinary investigation into the role sex plays in perception and our notions of ourselves--and into what happens when the erotic impulse meets the world of medicine.

Beyond the Pill: A 30-Day Program to Balance Your Hormones, Reclaim Your Body, and Reverse the Dangerous Side Effects of the Birth Control Pill


Jolene Brighten - 2019
    While the birth control pill is widely prescribed as a quick-fix solution to a variety of women’s health conditions, taking it can also result in other more serious and dangerous health consequences. Did you know that women on the pill are more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant? That they are at significantly increased risk for autoimmune disease, heart attack, thyroid and adrenal disorders, and even breast and cervical cancer? That the pill can even cause vaginal dryness, unexplained hair loss, flagging libido, extreme fatigue, and chronic infection. As if women didn’t have enough to worry about, that little pill we’re taking to manage our symptoms is only making things worse.Jolene Brighten, ND, author of the groundbreaking new book DITCH THE PILL, specializes in treating women’s hormone imbalances caused by the pill and shares her proven 30-day program designed to reverse the myriad of symptoms women experience every day—whether you choose to stay on the pill or not. The first book of its kind to target the birth control pill and the scientifically-proven symptoms associated with taking it, DITCH THE PILL is an actionable plan for taking control, and will help readers:• Locate the root cause of their hormonal issues, like estrogen dominance, low testosterone, and low progesterone• Discover a pain-free, manageable period free of cramps, acne, stress, or PMS without the harmful side effects that come with the pill• Detox the liver, support the adrenals and thyroid, heal the gut, reverse metabolic mayhem, boost fertility, and enhance mood• Transition into a nutrition and supplement program, with more than 30 hormone-balancing recipesFeaturing simple diet and lifestyle interventions, DITCH THE PILL is the first step to reversing the risky side effects of the pill, finally finding hormonal health, and getting your badass self back.

Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs


Jerry Lewis Avorn - 2004
    Jerry Avorn has some sobering news. Drawing on more than twenty-five years of patient care, teaching, and research at Harvard Medical School, he shares his firsthand experience of the wide gap in our knowledge of the effectiveness of one medication as compared to another. In Powerful Medicines, he reminds us that every pill we take represents a delicate compromise between the promise of healing, the risk of side effects, and an increasingly daunting price. The stakes on each front grow higher every year as new drugs with impressive power, worrisome side effects, and troubling costs are introduced.This is a comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at issues that affect everyone: our shortage of data comparing the worth of similar drugs for the same condition; alarming lapses in the detection of lethal side effects; the underuse of life-saving medications; lavish marketing campaigns that influence what doctors prescribe; and the resulting upward spiral of costs that places vital drugs beyond the reach of many Americans.In this engagingly written book, Dr. Avorn asks questions that will interest every consumer: How can a product judged safe by the Food and Drug Administration turn out to have unexpectedly lethal side effects? Why has the nation’s drug bill been growing at nearly 20 percent per year? How can physicians and patients pick the best medication in its class? How do doctors actually make their prescribing decisions, and why do those decisions sometimes go wrong? Why do so many Americans suffer preventable illnesses and deaths that proper drug use could have averted? How can the nation gain control over its escalating drug budget without resorting to rationing or draconian governmental controls?Using clinical case histories taken from his own work as a practitioner, researcher, and advocate, Dr. Avorn demonstrates the impressive power of the well-conceived prescription as well as the debacles that can result when medications are misused. He describes an innovative program that employs the pharmaceutical industry’s own marketing techniques to reduce use of some of the most overprescribed and overpriced products. Powerful Medicines offers timely and practical advice on how the nation can improve its drug-approval process, and how patients can work with doctors to make sure their prescriptions are safe, effective, and as affordable as possible. This is a passionate and provocative call for action as well as a compelling work of clear-headed science.From the Hardcover edition.

The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How to Fix It


W. Chris Winter - 2017
     If you want to fix your sleep problems, Internet tips and tricks aren't going to do it for you. You need to really understand what's going on with your sleep--both what your problems are and how to solve them.The Sleep Solution is an exciting journey of sleep self-discovery and understanding that will help you custom design specific interventions to fit your lifestyle. Drawing on his twenty-four years of experience within the field, neurologist and sleep expert W. Chris Winter will help you...- Understand how sleep works and the ways in which food, light, and other activities act to help or hurt the process- Learn why sleeping pills are so often misunderstood and used incorrectly--and how you can achieve your best sleep without them- Incorporate sleep and napping into your life--whether you are a shift worker, student, or overcommitted parent- Think outside the box to better understand ways to treat a multitude of conditions--from insomnia to sleep apnea to restless leg syndrome and circadian sleep disorders- Wade through the ever-changing sea of sleep technology and understand its value as it relates to your own sleep strugglesDubbed the "Sleep Whisperer" by Arianna Huffington, Dr. Winter is an international expert on sleep and has helped more than 10,000 patients rest better at night, including countless professional athletes. Now, he's bringing his experiences out from under the covers--redefining what it means to have optimal sleep and get the ZZZs you really need...INCLUDES TIPS, TRICKS, EXERCISES, AND ILLUSTRATIONS

First Aid for the Psychiatry Clerkship: A Student-To-Student Guide


Latha G. Stead - 2002
    Its organization and thoroughness are unsurpassed, putting it above similar review books. Students who thoroughly read this book should have no trouble successfully completing their psychiatry clerkship and passing the shelf exam. As course director for the core psychiatry clerkship at my institution, I will recommend this book to students."--Doody's Review Service"First Aid for the Psychiatry Clerkship" gives you the core information needed to impress on the wards and pass the psychiatry clerkship exam. Written by students who know what it takes to succeed, and based on the national guidelines for the psychiatry clerkship, the book is filled with mnemonics, ward and exam tips, tables, clinical images, algorithms, and newly added mini-cases.Features Completely revised based on the psychiatry clerkship's core competencies Written by medical students who passed and reviewed by faculty for accuracy NEW integrated mini-cases illustrate classic patient presentations and/or commonly tested scenarios NEW illustrations and management algorithms Updated throughout with enhanced sections on medications, depression/anxiety, and child psychiatry Helps students hone in on the most important concepts for the clerkship and the examThe content you need to ace the clerkship: Section I: How to Succeed in the Psychiatry Clerkship Section II: High-Yield Facts; Examination and Diagnosis; Psychotic Disorders; Mood Disorders; Anxiety and Adjustment Disorders; Personality Disorders; Substance-Related Disorders; Cognitive Disorders; Geriatric Disorders; Psychiatric Disorders in Children; Dissociative Disorders; Somataform and Factitious Disorders; Impulse Control Disorders; Eating Disordes; Disorders; Sleep Disorders; Sexual Disorders; Psychtherapies; Psychopharmacology; Legal Issues; Section III: Awards and Opportunities.

The Hormone Cure: Reclaim Balance, Sleep, Sex Drive and Vitality Naturally with the Gottfried Protocol


Sara Gottfried - 2013
    Or they’re led to believe that the answer can be found only at the bottom of a bottle of prescription pills. Dr. Sara Gottfried, a Harvard-educated physician and nationally recognized, board-certified gynecologist, refuses to accept that being a woman means feeling overwhelmed or that popping pills is the new normal. In The Hormone Cure, she shares the unique hormone-balancing program that she has used to help thousands of women reclaim wellness, verve, and optimal health. Combining natural therapies with rigorous scientific testing and using an informative questionnaire to identify the common causes of hormonal imbalance, Dr. Gottfried provides an individualized plan in nonjudgmental and thoughtful language. Based on ten years’ study of cutting-edge medical research as a specialist in functional and integrative therapies, Dr. Gottfried’s three-tiered treatment strategy includes: •Supplements and targeted lifestyle changes that address underlying deficiencies •Herbal therapies that restore balance and optimize your body’s natural function • Bioidentical hormones— most available without a prescription The Hormone Cure is a groundbreaking book that demonstrates how balancing your hormones can cure underlying health issues and result in restored sleep, greater energy, improved mood, easy weight loss, increased productivity, and many more benefits. Dr. Sara Gottfried’s The Hormone Cure will transform your life.

The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love


bell hooks - 2003
    But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are -- whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves -- and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women. A brave and astonishing work, The Will to Change is designed to help men reclaim the best part of themselves

Mad, Bad, and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors


Lisa Appignanesi - 2007
    From Mary Lamb, sister of Charles, who in the throes of a nervous breakdown turned on her mother with a kitchen knife, to Freud, Jung, and Lacan, who developed the new women-centered therapies, Lisa Appignanesi’s research traces how more and more of the inner lives and emotions of women have become a matter for medics and therapists. Here too is the story of how over the years symptoms and diagnoses have developed together to create fashions in illness and how treatments have succeeded or sometimes failed. Mad, Bad, and Sad takes us on a fascinating journey through the fragile, extraordinary human mind.

Illness as Metaphor


Susan Sontag - 1978
    By demystifying the fantasies surrounding cancer, Sontag shows cancer for what it is - just a disease. Cancer, she argues, is not a curse, not a punishment, certainly not an embarrassment and, it is highly curable, if good treatment is followed. Almost a decade later, with the outbreak of a new, stigmatized disease replete with mystifications and punitive metaphors, Sontag wrote a sequel to Illness as Metaphor, extending the argument of the earlier book to the AIDS pandemic.These two essays now published together, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, have been translated into many languages and continue to have an enormous influence on the thinking of medical professionals and, above all, on the lives of many thousands of patients and caregivers.

Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ


Giulia Enders - 2014
    Gut, an international bestseller, gives the alimentary canal its long-overdue moment in the spotlight. With quirky charm, rising science star Giulia Enders explains the gut’s magic, answering questions like: Why does acid reflux happen? What’s really up with gluten and lactose intolerance? How does the gut affect obesity and mood? Communication between the gut and the brain is one of the fastest-growing areas of medical research—on par with stem-cell research. Our gut reactions, we learn, are intimately connected with our physical and mental well-being. Enders’s beguiling manifesto will make you finally listen to those butterflies in your stomach: they’re trying to tell you something important.

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia


Marya Hornbacher - 1997
    A vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching memoir, Wasted is the story of one woman's travels to reality's darker side—and her decision to find her way back on her own terms.

The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution


Jonathan Eig - 2014
    Jonathan Eig's masterful narrative revolves around four principal characters: the fiery feminist Margaret Sanger, who was a champion of birth control in her campaign for the rights of women but neglected her own children in pursuit of free love; the beautiful Katharine McCormick, who owed her fortune to her wealthy husband, the son of the founder of International Harvester and a schizophrenic; the visionary scientist Gregory Pincus, who was dismissed by Harvard in the 1930s as a result of his experimentation with in vitro fertilization but who, after he was approached by Sanger and McCormick, grew obsessed with the idea of inventing a drug that could stop ovulation; and the telegenic John Rock, a Catholic doctor from Boston who battled his own church to become an enormously effective advocate in the effort to win public approval for the drug that would be marketed by Searle as Enovid.Spanning the years from Sanger’s heady Greenwich Village days in the early twentieth century to trial tests in Puerto Rico in the 1950s to the cusp of the sexual revolution in the 1960s, this is a grand story of radical feminist politics, scientific ingenuity, establishment opposition, and, ultimately, a sea change in social attitudes. Brilliantly researched and briskly written, The Birth of the Pill is gripping social, cultural, and scientific history.