Like other cultural phenomena, psychosomatic illnesses are subject to changes in fashion; here, Shorter (The Healthy Century, 1987, etc.) has applied his considerable skill in researching medical history to an examination of these trends from the mid-18th century to the present. Shorter defines psychosomatic illness as ``any illness in which physical symptoms, produced by the action of the unconscious mind, are defined by the individual as evidence of organic disease and for which medical help is sought.'' He identifies doctors' attitudes and beliefs as major cultural factors in determining what symptoms the unconscious mind selects, and examines how doctors' ideas have changed as new theories about disease have evolved. He also looks at the changing doctor-patient relationship over the past two-and-a-half centuries, making clear why ``the vapors'' and hysteric fits of paralysis, once especially common among women, are now quite unacceptable (as are the horrific treatments devised by some doctors to deal with them). Shorter notes that today chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is perhaps the most fashionable psychosomatic complaint in a spectrum that includes yeast infections, food allergies, and what has been called the ``twentieth-century disease,'' or ``total allergy syndrome.'' Using CFS as an example, the author traces how a psychosomatic illness becomes fashionable as the mass media, supplanting medical authority, disseminate pseudoscientific information about genuine, difficult-to-diagnose organic diseases to suggestible individuals with quite different symptoms. Whereas the ``stifling intimacy of family life'' in Victorian times increased the propensity for certain psychosomatic illnesses, he explains, today social isolation and exposure to media sensationalism produce others. A fine, example-filled account of how different times and different mores produce different psychosomatic illnesses.
Pub Date: Dec. 16, 1991
ISBN: 0-02-928665-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although Pipher defines the therapist’s job as clarifying issues and presenting choices rather than telling people what to...
A long-time psychotherapist mingles reassuring tips for a newcomer to the field with personal recollections of her own successes and failures.
Employing the same format as other volumes in this series (Todd Gitlin’s Letters to a Young Activist, p. 205, etc.), Pipher (Reviving Ophelia, 1994, etc.) writes letters to Laura, a young graduate student, setting forth some of her views on what therapy is all about and how good therapists do their work. The letters are grouped into seasons and date from early December 2001 to late November 2002. The winter correspondence discourses on the characteristics of good therapists, conducting family therapy, and helping clients connect surface complaints with deeper issues. Spring takes the author into the subjects of how to help patients deal with pain and achieve happiness, the use of metaphors as therapeutic devices, and the role of antidepressants in therapy. Pipher considers family therapy in more detail in the summer letters, which also take up the problem of the therapist’s personal safety. In the fall, she turns to ethical issues facing therapists, how storytelling can help clients see themselves in more positive ways, how to recognize and deflect patients’ resistance, and how to deal with failure. Ruefully recounting some of her own missteps and bad judgments, Pipher reminds her student that therapists are human and errors are inevitable. Throughout, she eschews psychological jargon and takes a commonsensical approach to the vicissitudes of living. As she puts it in describing her own sessions with clients, “I do bread-and-butter work”: she often suggests getting a good night’s sleep, going for a swim, or taking a walk.
Although Pipher defines the therapist’s job as clarifying issues and presenting choices rather than telling people what to do, giving advice seems to be second nature to her. Fortunately, the advice appears to be well considered and benign.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-465-05766-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
The book would have benefited from a tighter structure, but it’s inspiring and relatable for readers with depression.
The creator and host of the titular podcast recounts his lifelong struggles with depression.
With the increasing success of his podcast, Moe, a longtime radio personality and author whose books include The Deleted E-Mails of Hillary Clinton: A Parody (2015), was encouraged to open up further about his own battles with depression and delve deeper into characteristics of the disease itself. Moe writes about how he has struggled with depression throughout his life, and he recounts similar experiences from the various people he has interviewed in the past, many of whom are high-profile entertainers and writers—e.g. Dick Cavett and Andy Richter, novelist John Green. The narrative unfolds in a fairly linear fashion, and the author relates his family’s long history with depression and substance abuse. His father was an alcoholic, and one of his brothers was a drug addict. Moe tracks how he came to recognize his own signs of depression while in middle school, as he experienced the travails of OCD and social anxiety. These early chapters alternate with brief thematic “According to THWoD” sections that expand on his experiences, providing relevant anecdotal stories from some of his podcast guests. In this early section of the book, the author sometimes rambles. Though his experiences as an adolescent are accessible, he provides too many long examples, overstating his message, and some of the humor feels forced. What may sound naturally breezy in his podcast interviews doesn’t always strike the same note on the written page. The narrative gains considerable momentum when Moe shifts into his adult years and the challenges of balancing family and career while also confronting the devastating loss of his brother from suicide. As he grieved, he writes, his depression caused him to experience “a salad of regret, anger, confusion, and horror.” Here, the author focuses more attention on the origins and evolution of his series, stories that prove compelling as well.
The book would have benefited from a tighter structure, but it’s inspiring and relatable for readers with depression.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-20928-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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