Strangers to Ourselves
Book description
The highly anticipated debut from the award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv is a ground-breaking exploration of illness and the mind
Strangers to Ourselves is a compassionate, courageous and riveting look at the ways we talk about and understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on unpublished journals…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Strangers to Ourselves as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Before I’d finished the prologue to Rachel Aviv’s book, I’d already begun recommending it to other people. Her incisive and curious approach to questions of what constitutes mental illness, who gets to decide, and the personal impact of diagnostic labels and treatments—ranging from intensive psychoanalysis to medication—is exactly what our culture needs right now.
The book is structured as a series of case studies but reads more like a collection of interlinked short stories, full of vivid prose and fully realized human characters. Aviv is compassionate toward her subjects without ever condescending; she is critical of our mental health and…
From Alexander's list on understanding misunderstanding mental illness.
I was deeply captivated by the intensity of the stories of traumatized individuals and the level of intimacy that Ms. Aviv was able to achieve for each one of them. Having access to the journals of most of the characters in the book is not something you come across often.
I felt invited to use compassion and understanding as I kept reading. I was profoundly moved by the struggles recounted and the way they helped me accept that some trauma cases can't be effectively treated without medication.
From Antonieta's list on uncovering the human experience and exploring the depths of trauma.
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