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An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness | 
 enlarge | Author: Kay Redfield Jamison
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  332 reviews
Sales Rank: 467
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0679763309
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.8950092
EAN: 9780679763307
ASIN: 0679763309
Publication Date: January 14, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
In Touched with Fire, Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychiatrist, turned a mirror on the creativity so often associated with mental illness. In this book she turns that mirror on herself. With breathtaking honesty she tells of her own manic depression, the bitter costs of her illness, and its paradoxical benefits: "There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness and terror involved in this kind of madness.... It will never end, for madness carves its own reality." This is one of the best scientific autobiographies ever written, a combination of clarity, truth, and insight into human character. "We are all, as Byron put it, differently organized," Jamison writes. "We each move within the restraints of our temperament and live up only partially to its possibilities." Jamison's ability to live fully within her limitations is an inspiration to her fellow mortals, whatever our particular burdens may be. --Mary Ellen Curtin
Product Description
The personal memoir of a manic depressive and an authority on the subject describes the onset of the illness during her teenage years and her determined journey through the realm of available treatments. Reprint. 125,000 first printing. NYT.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 327 more reviews...
 Beautifully told, but not always easy to relate with January 4, 2009
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a skillfully written memoir of someone suffering from manic-depression. Its vivid storytelling, particularly while Dr. Jamison speaks of her most severe and dangerous episodes, is haunting. The description of the days following and during her suicide attempt is impossible not to be deeply affected by. At one point around that time, she describes an episode of horrifying psychosis, which seems to be described in such a way that suggests her true experience with it is indescribable. She paints a lucid picture of manic-depression and its catastrophic, often fatal effects on one's life.
However, I felt that the last third of the book, as Dr. Jamison's life turns around for the fortunate, is something I couldn't relate to in the same way. As others have mentioned, her fortune with having people who have helped her is extraordinary. In particular, I couldn't help but sense an air of conceit as Dr. Jamison focuses strongly on the details of her seemingly blissful romantic life. To an uneasy extent, her detailed focus on her love life seems somewhat excessive in a memoir which initially seems to be meant to help give insight into the illness, but, although she clearly acknowledges her fortuity, her fortune reaches such a point later on that her life seems what would typically be unrealistic even for those without bipolar illness. As a result, I felt some resentment, and didn't enjoy reading about her apparent, endlessly blissful experiences with romance. Speaking as an experienced and diagnosed (admittedly 21-year-old and young) sufferer of bipolar disorder and with regard to its effect on my interpersonal and hence romantic life, I did feel some personal resentment near the end of the book, when things seem to turn around for her to a fantastic level. I felt hurt as she reminisced of the passionate nights she experienced, which seemed unrealistic for the the majority of bipolar sufferers. The author, while telling of her fortune, takes it to the level of someone else's wishful fantasy. As the details of her close and loyal friends, lovers, and other aids were detailed, my benign envy became saddening jealousy. I am by no means trying to minimize her experiences, but it's clear that her fortune in life, particularly with those who have helped her through her illness, is extraordinary. I think less fortunate sufferers of bipolar disorder who are struggling to make a life for themselves, much less have such a supportive and stable interpersonal life, may feel a similar degree of resentment while reading these heavy-handed parts.
It's unfortunate that I wasn't able to enjoy these parts of the book, as I was enticed all the way through her descriptions of her personal suffering of her illness. But once I stopped being able to relate, with the vividly detailed portrayals of her romantic life, it became an unpleasant read. Those suffering from bipolar disorder may feel slighted, as I did.
 Newly diagnosed January 2, 2009
If, like me, you're newly diagnosed with any form of bipolar disorder (bipolar II in my case), reading this enthralling, nakedly honest book will undoubtedly leave you thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm not alone in this!" When I was given (doomed, I thought) the prognosis I immediately and painfully searched for some kind of witness to help me deal with what I sadly realized is a lifelong illness, and I found it in this book. I finished it in one evening and, if you're grasping for hope or just a baseline like I was, you'll have the highlighter out all while feeling like she's speaking your life's story!
I thought moods were madness? December 3, 2008
One of our top 100 books.
This an extremely touching book.
It will effect you in ways you wouldn't expect.
Sad & Mad. Nice life!
-Jane Stevens
Tao Cycle Therapy: Natural Happiness via Self Directed Cure for Chronic Anxiety & Depression
Too cerebral and tedious November 13, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Right from the start, I did not find this book engaging. Unlike The Quiet Room: A Journey Out of the Torment of Madness which I have recently read and in which your heart absolutely breaks for the author, Ms. Jamison tends to recount her experiences with the cold, clinical eye of science, rather than expressing in what way her illness affects her feelings.
This book reads like a thesis paper. Ms. Jamison "reports" on her illness, with no emotion behind the words. Even as she talks about the death of one of her patients as well as her own suicide attempt and resultant coma, the words are cold and critical, making it hard to empathize with her.
As you read, she suddenly throws in statements such as "I was married by then," and "I was seeing patients by then." There was no mention up to that point that she was even dating someone, or that she was building a client base. I would think there would be some emotional account leading up to these milestones, describing what part her illness played in these important events, but they seem to be an afterthought.
She constantly provides lists of activities and accomplishments. A great deal of the book centers around her research and treatment of patients, and her fears seem to revolve only around whether or not she may be forced to give up her clinical practice and teaching if "found out," rather than providing any details as to how her illness directly affected her otherwise.
I feel she oversimplifies a complex illness which manifests in many different forms. She repeatedly overuses the word "madness," and at one point even uses the phrase "being crazy," which I find totally unsympathetic, especially for someone suffering from the illness. I believe this has unpleasant connotations, and contributes to societal stigma and misunderstanding.
A typical sentence: "In the cold light of day, however, the reality and destructiveness of rekindled illness tend to dampen the evocativeness of such selectively remembered, wistful, intense, and gentle moments." A bit too cerebral for me, bordering on what I might call "difficult to follow." She quotes Eliot, Byron, Melville and Lowell, among others, with whom the casual reader may not be entirely familiar (I am referring to myself).
This account does to some degree open a window into the world of bipolar disorder, but it left me cold without much new understanding into the emotions of the sufferer. It's definitely not the most moving or poignant account I've read about living with this type of illness. It's worth a look, but it's not the first book someone trying to understand this illness needs on his or her shelf.
 An Unquiet Mind October 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Kay Redfield Jamison's personal account of suffering from the relentless manic-depressive illness is extremely powerful. Jamison uses unique storytelling techniques to display the disorder in a very accurate light. What may initially seem monotonously repetitive turns out to be Jamison's use of the cycles of repetition in the portrayal of the true nature of manic-depression. Without pausing to think, readers may find the vicious cycle--depression, lithium, stop lithium, depression--to represent a boring storyline; however, after considering this cycle's role in the illness, one should realize its importance to the very essence of its representation.
Jamison opened my eyes to an aspect of manic-depression that I had never before considered; despite the terrible feelings that "black" episodes of depression induce in those suffering from the illness, they are often reluctant to give up the omnipotent feelings they achieve during manic episodes. Upon simply knowing that fact, I might not be convinced that the positives outweigh the negatives. Jamison uses such vivid language to describe the wonderful aspects of mania, however, which puts me, the reader, into the position of manic-depressive people when they are faced with the option to trade in these feelings in order to reduce the feelings of depression. Had the descriptions been only of the depressions, it would seem as though one should want to do anything to eliminate those feelings; however, after reading about the intoxicating feelings, the impossibly productive urges, it is clearer why treating the manias along with the depressions would be a great sacrifice.
Jamison's representations of her relationships with others are essential to both her writing style and the understanding of her experience with the illness. While many writers use somewhat descriptive sex scenes to define relationships with love interests, Jamison tends to only subtly allude to sex, rather than describing the event of it. Jamison describes a scene where she is with David, the man I perceived to be Jamison's deepest love interest throughout the memoir. The two are on a walk together, when David stops to catch his breath. Jamison then proceeds to note David's comment that he had been "getting too much exercise at night," but leaves the reference at that. Someone who is not alert to the possibility of a sexual relationship between the two characters might not even make note of the reference, which seems preferable to the bluntness of a graphic sex scene. This is one of the slim selection of mentions of sex at all throughout the book, and they do not become significantly more obvious than this one.
In the past, I didn't have a particularly clear understanding of the illness; I didn't understand things like why people with this illness stop taking their lithium, why they don't get help--the problem was that I didn't realize how truly out of control the patients' lives become.
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