Scan barcode
pigrazia's review against another edition
3.0
Che libro inaspettato. Acquistato perché é Adelphi e perché sono sempre stata affascinata dalla psichiatria. nella prima parte la scrittrice narra per filo e per segno la sua schizofrenia, poi nelle parti successive prova ad analizzare, in forma di saggio, le ragioni che possono aver causato la sua dissociazione. Libro non semplice, ma bello.
astroemi's review against another edition
5.0
Uno de los libros más emocionantes que he leído en mucho tiempo. Nos mete de lleno al mundo de un cerebro con esquizofrenia y puede, a ratos, hacernos dudar de nuestra propia realidad. Si quieres darte una idea de lo poderoso que es nuestro cerebro, y de cómo funciona la esquizofrenia, te lo recomiendo.
paulataua's review against another edition
5.0
Thanks to Petra X for pointing me in the direction of this. An in depth recount of the author’s six month psychotic episode that saw her traveling up and down the states on Greyhound buses totally controlled by ‘operators’ telling her what to do and where to go. Fascinating! It is rare we get such a detailed account as psychotics are usually hospitalized and quickly subjected to memory destroying Electro-Convulsive Therapy and heavy anti psychotic tranquilizers. It is with luck that her attempts to get into the psychiatric hospital were unsuccessful due to not having enough money to cover the likely long stay they predicted. Suddenly the episode finished as suddenly as it had begun, and she was able to write down her story. (This is not a spoiler as it is pointed out at the beginning). My favorite parts were the opening descriptions of the competitive backstabbing in her office; the French psychoanalyst who saw the problem as rooted in her need for frequent sexual encounters, but not ones with American men, who were such hopeless lovers; and, of course, her wish regarding schizophrenics:
I go so angry thinking about the schizophrenics in the institutions that I wished someone would put a checkbook and a Greyhound bus ticket in each of their laps and let them go far, far away from the enemy’.
As relevant now as it was when it was first published in 1958.
I go so angry thinking about the schizophrenics in the institutions that I wished someone would put a checkbook and a Greyhound bus ticket in each of their laps and let them go far, far away from the enemy’.
As relevant now as it was when it was first published in 1958.
a_pilgrim's review against another edition
4.0
“I am destroying myself with the environment I have created,” says man.
“You are a small thing,” says life, “and you cannot see beyond your nose. I shall shape you to cope with whatever environment you create.”
[Schizophrenia, ©Sergey Bezhinets]
Schizophrenia is becoming a common mental ‘disorder’, with the numbers increasing each year. It is also the case with few other mental illnesses.
Read this - a simple and brilliant understanding of Schizophrenia:
"Your mind is 'split' and a subconscious portion of it, no longer under your conscious control, is staging a private show for your benefit. The kind of show it stages will depend upon the kind of stuff that is in it and upon the relationship that existed between your conscious and unconscious while your mind was whole. It may, with each passing day, tear you to smaller and smaller pieces. It may, on the other hand, patiently stitch together the segments of you that have split apart."
-----
[Hypnotherapy, ©Lucy Fey]
"An odd picture, a sort of chart drawn on grey paper in ivory ink. There was a large circle and inside the circle, another circle, and inside the second circle, a third circle. Through the circles ran straight lines, radiating from the smallest circle outward."
----
” It is not that the schizophrenic is an individual who has become a misfit. On the surface, he fits too well. It is that he has never learned the job of fitting his whole self. He has learned only to divide, separate.”
"A schizophrenic is as I have described him— an individual without adequate courage who learns to separate himself so that he is acceptable to himself and his environment.”
Operators and Things is fascinating, quite interesting and very insightful. Barbara O’Brien gives the reader a detailed account of her time and experience being a schizophrenic. She explains about the work environment that led her to this mental illness episode. As mentioned somewhere in the blurb, reading this book does feel like watching a Hollywood movie. It did remind me of Disney`s Inside Out.
On a serious note, it is quite important to get that ‘inside peek’ into the mind of a schizophrenic as this gives a deeper understanding of the thinking and also the reasons behind many of the behaviour patterns. There is so much to learn from this book.
” At the very outset of insanity, it would seem, plans were being made for a new sanity.”
However, there is an ‘unrealistic’ feeling deep inside. This seems like one of those rare cases. A question pops up in the mind – is it really possible for a person to ‘recover’ from schizophrenia!? Another question – how many schizophrenics will actually be able to reconstruct their story and the path that led to their current state?
As the author stated, even though much is unclear, this is certain about schizophrenia - ” no one knows what causes it; no one knows how to cure it.”
---
[mental health, AMSA wellness]
IT IS important that we are all informed about mental health and emotional illnesses, as it can happen to our loved ones or friends. With awareness, we can help reduce stigma, and may also end up saving a life!
***
A collection of few insightful notes from the book:
” Even though the circumstances which induce or permit the unconscious mind to rise and take over are still a mystery, the fact that in schizophrenia it rises to do just that is strikingly clear.”
==========
“Schizophrenia, unlike other mental ailments in which the patients show an almost identical pattern of emotional complexes, had a fantastic way of lighting on the heads of totally unlike people; emotional complexes in schizophrenic patients seemed to have no similarity whatever.”
==========
“Also, it occurred among vast categories of individuals: among extroverts and introverts; among men and women; among people of all racial and national descents; among people of all religious trainings; among people with widely different social and economic environments.”
==========
“I became very curious about the psychiatrists who suspected a relationship between schizophrenia and a dysfunction of the adrenal gland.”
==========
“One of the theories I had come upon in the textbooks was that the schizophrenic split was a physical split of a weird kind, horrible to think about, but intriguing in a way— that in schizophrenia, splinters of the conscious mind split off and hang down in the unconscious.”
==========
“Man thinks of himself as a mind and a body and is content, for all practical purposes, with this simple analysis. But a human is a complex universe, propelled by a solar system of endocrine glands, a united nation of organs, a vast electronic web of nerves, rivers of blood and masses of specialized cells, some of them specialized for the job of thinking.”
==========
“Whether the schizophrenic really creates a dream world intentionally and purposefully, or whether he finds himself in one is debatable.”
==========
“In insanity, there is nothing more important than escape. The individual, whether he is invaded by strange chemicals or not invaded by strange chemicals, is caught in a situation which says plainly: fight or run.”
==========
“What is stress? Stress is a situation which you have not learned to meet and which terrifies you, occurring in a place you cannot leave.”
==========
“Insanity was, for me, a training program, accompanied by escape from actual stress until I could gain what I needed psychologically to face the same stress in actuality.”
==========
“The error lay, not in the community in which I was reared but in the way in which I, as an individual, adapted to it.”
***
"Losing wholeness to gain acceptance for a part is, I think the tragedy of the schizophrenic."
imitira's review against another edition
4.0
Despite what you might have heard, not all that gripping as spec-fic. With sufficient suspension of disbelief to accept it as an internal narrative of schizophrenia, however, it's entirely fascinating. The somewhat dated closing commentary is interesting in its own way, though it drags by comparison.