An important, insightful book explaining how society became a vortex of mental illness and offering possible remedies.
A sweeping examination of the roots of today’s mental illness epidemic.
Gabor Maté, a doctor who specializes in addiction treatment, is the author of the acclaimed 2008 book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction. In his latest, co-written with his son, composer and lyricist Daniel, he casts a wider net, investigating why an increasing number of people are suffering from mental and physical illnesses. “Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two,” write the authors, who sees two overlapping layers to the problem. The first is that traumas—a term he defines widely—are going unrecognized and untreated. Combined with the stress of modern life, the result is that many people retreat into addictive medication, which often causes or exacerbates physical ailments. Once, these mental strains were addressed by communal activities and personal connections, but those remedies are vanishing in the digital age. The second level is the economic organization of techno-capitalism, which creates conditions of inequality, reclusiveness, and manipulation. Taken together, these issues create a yawning gap between how people live and how their biology wants them to live. “A society that fails to value communality…is a society facing away from the essence of what it means to be human,” write the authors. They believe that individuals must accept their traumas in order to move past them and toward true healing. Stress, alienation, and isolation should be denormalized. At the sociopolitical level, the authors acknowledge that they do not have any simple answers, although making the medical, legal, and teaching professions more humanistic would be a good start. At more than 500 pages, the text demands attention and reflection, but it repays the effort, giving readers much to ponder.
An important, insightful book explaining how society became a vortex of mental illness and offering possible remedies.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-08388-8
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Avery
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
An unflinching self-portrait.
The tumultuous life of a bisexual, autistic comic.
In her debut memoir, Scottish comedian Brady recounts the emotional turmoil of living with undiagnosed autism. “The public perception of autistics is so heavily based on the stereotype of men who love trains or science,” she writes, “that many women miss out on diagnosis and are thought of as studious instead.” She was nothing if not studious, obsessively focused on foreign languages, but she found it difficult to converse in her own language. From novels, she tried to gain “knowledge about people, about how they spoke to each other, learning turns of phrase and metaphor” that others found so familiar. Often frustrated and overwhelmed by sensory overload, she erupted in violent meltdowns. Her parents, dealing with behavior they didn’t understand—including self-cutting—sent her to “a high-security mental hospital” as a day patient. Even there, a diagnosis eluded her; she was not accurately diagnosed until she was 34. Although intimate friendships were difficult, she depicts her uninhibited sexuality and sometimes raucous affairs with both men and women. “I grew up confident about my queerness,” she writes, partly because of “autism’s lack of regard for social norms.” While at the University of Edinburgh, she supported herself as a stripper. “I liked that in a strip club men’s contempt of you was out in the open,” she admits. “In the outside world, misogyny was always hovering in your peripheral vision.” When she worked as a reporter for the university newspaper, she was assigned to try a stint as a stand-up comic and write about it; she found it was work she loved. After “about a thousand gigs in grim little pubs across England,” she landed an agent and embarked on a successful career. Although Brady hopes her memoir will “make things feel better for the next autistic or misfit girl,” her anger is as evident as her compassion.
An unflinching self-portrait.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780593582503
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
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