A collection of poems that delve into the experience of living with bipolar disorder. With Hypergraphia and Other Failed Attempts at Paradise, Jennifer Metsker reaches for an understanding of the ecstasy of madness, utilizing both lyric and prose forms that mimic the sublime state of mania through their engagement with language. Ordinary life becomes strange as these poems question what happens when the mind overthrows the body. At times playful and humorous, at times dark, above all these poems aim to approach mental illness from a personal and compassionate perspective.
“An original, fascinating, and beautifully written reckoning . . . of that great human passion: to write.”—Kay Redfield Jamison, national bestselling author of An Unquiet Mind Why is it that some writers struggle for months to come up with the perfect sentence or phrase while others, hunched over a keyboard deep into the night, seem unable to stop writing? In The Midnight Disease, neurologist Alice W. Flaherty explores the mysteries of literary creativity: the drive to write, what sparks it, and what extinguishes it. She draws on intriguing examples from medical case studies and from the lives of writers, from Franz Kafka to Anne Lamott, from Sylvia Plath to Stephen King. Flaherty, who herself has grappled with episodes of compulsive writing and block, also offers a compelling personal account of her own experiences with these conditions. “[Flaherty] is the real thing . . . and her writing magically transforms her own tragedies into something strange and whimsical almost, almost funny.”—The Washington Post “This is interesting, heated stuff.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Brilliant . . . [a] precious jewel of a book . . . that sparkles with some fresh insight or intriguing fact on practically every page.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer “Flaherty mixes memoir, meditation, compendium and scholarly reportage in an odd but absorbing look at the neurological basis of writing and its pathologies . . . Writers will delight in the way information and lore are interspersed.”—Publishers Weekly
Spanning a duration of over thirty years, Hypergraphia includes previously unpublished material, as well as conversations with the influential improvisational guitarist and founding member of the group AMM, Keith Rowe and the ever-insightful writer and musicologist Marcus Boon. The volume includes aspects of Sylvian's own photographic work as well as selections by some of the most reputable and innovative artists working today and its design celebrates the longstanding collaboration between Sylvian and acclaimed designer Chris Bigg.
Better understand your patients' complete medical profile and provide the best possible care! This one-of-a-kind reference provides a practical look at neurological disease and how it affects, and is affected by, other disease. It helps neurologists manage patients with co-existing medical conditions, and helps internists understand and treat the neurological manifestations of patients' primary diseases. A new emphasis on diagnosis and management-including advances in pharmacology, genetic-based therapies, and new imaging techniques-makes this 4th Edition more clinically valuable than ever! Focused content highlights the vital links between neurology and other medical specialties, promoting a better understanding of all disciplines, as well as enhancing patient care. Comprehensive coverage of advances in pharmacology, such as new antibiotics for infectious diseases, helps you successfully manage a full range of diseases and disorders. An interdisciplinary team of authors provides insight into the neurological aspects of the conditions you see in daily practice. Easy-to-read chapters apply equally well to neurologists and non-neurologists, providing essential knowledge that covers the full spectrum of medical care. Expanded chapters emphasize key diagnostic and therapeutic information, including appropriate testing and treatments for neurological disease. An emphasis on advances in pharmacology and new imaging techniques helps you better manage your patients and understand how new drugs or therapies will affect your patients and practice. New chapters on auditory and vestibular disease, ocular disease, and cutaneous disease provide a well-rounded look at the specialty. Updated illustrations make complex concepts easier to understand and apply.
Highly Commended, BMA Medical Book Awards 2013Previously published as Textbook of Clinical Neuropsychiatry, this book has been re-titled and thoroughly updated, redesigned, and enhanced to include the fundamentals of neuroscience. This highly acclaimed text provides a definitive, clinically oriented, yet comprehensive book covering neuropsychiatry
More on the relationship between brain disease and creativity Neurological Disorders in Famous Artists - Part 2' presents more writers, philosophers, musicians, painters and film directors who developed some form of neurological dysfunction and whose style and output changed following a stroke or other cerebral disorder. Mozart, Baudelaire, de Kooning, Proust, F ssli, Heine, Fellini, Visconti and others are all striking examples of how extraordinary creativity can be challenged and modified or destroyed and restored, all within the drama of a disease. When brain disease challenges the capabilities of artists, the changes that subsequently occur in their work provide a unique opportunity to explore the mysteries of creativity. This may also lead to a better understanding on how certain artists developed, particularly when the course of a disease corresponds with what is generally recognized as a new chapter in their work. This book offers a fascinating read for neurologists, psychiatrists, general physicians and anybody interested in art, literature, music and film.
Taking a look at the field of abnormal psychology, including major theoretical models of abnormality, research directions, clinical experiences, therapies and controversies, this book covers personality disorders, the psychodynamic perspective, neuroscience, the 'empirically-based treatment' movement, and more.
After a period in which neurology and psychiatry have become more and more defined, neurologists' interest in psychiatric topics, and vice versa, has increased. This book provides readers with an overview of the most representative neuropsychiatric syndromes such as Ganser and Capgras syndromes. It fills an existing gap in current literature and reintroduces a clinical approach. Additionally, there is a historical perspective throughout time with a focus on the most relevant clinical syndromes, offering distinct value to readers. With this approach, the book serves as a useful and stimulating guide on the diagnosis and management of neurologic psychiatric syndromes. It is for neurologists, neurosurgeons, psychiatrists, and all others interested in neuropsychiatric topics because these syndromes also called 'uncommon' may in fact be more frequent than the literature suggests.
Between 1919 and his death by suicide in 1963, Arthur Crew Inman wrote what is surely one of the fullest diaries ever kept by any American. Convinced that his bid for immortality required complete candor, he held nothing back. This abridgment of the original 155 volumes is at once autobiography, social chronicle, and an apologia addressed to unborn readers. Into this fascinating record Inman poured memories of a privileged Atlanta childhood, disastrous prep-school years, a nervous collapse in college followed by a bizarre life of self-diagnosed invalidism. Confined to a darkened room in his Boston apartment, he lived vicariously: through newspaper advertisements he hired "talkers" to tell him the stories of their lives, and he wove their strange histories into the diary. Young women in particular fascinated him. He studied their moods, bought them clothes, fondled them, and counseled them on their love affairs. His marriage in 1923 to Evelyn Yates, the heroine of the diary, survived a series of melodramatic episodes. While reflecting on national politics, waifs and revolutions, Inman speaks directly about his fears, compulsions, fantasies, and nightmares, coaxing the reader into intimacy with him. Despite his shocking self-disclosures he emerges as an oddly impressive figure. This compelling work is many things: a case history of a deeply troubled man; the story of a transplanted and self-conscious southerner; a historical overview of Boston illuminated with striking cityscapes; an odd sort of American social history. But chiefly it is, as Inman himself came to see, a gigantic nonfiction novel, a new literary form. As it moves inexorably toward a powerful denouement, The Inman Diary is an addictive narrative.
By examining the breakdown of language in several neuropsychiatric disorders, neuroscientists have identified brain circuits that are involved with metaphor, poetry, music, and religious experiences.
