An ambitious take on the diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues viewed through a cross-cultural lens.
When so many people take psychiatric drugs to survive their circumstances, perhaps something is wrong with society.
In this deeply researched narrative, the author reveals the many aspects of public life—whether in Global North or Global South countries—that influence the mental health of its citizens. Kidia, a writer, physician, and anthropologist, spends half of each year in Zimbabwe, where he was born and raised and now does mental health research, and the other half in the United States, where he attended medical school and now sees patients as a primary care doctor. His unique background affords him fertile ground for picking apart the tangled web of influences on a person’s mental well-being. Kidia shares stories from his life, such as his mother’s nervous breakdowns, his medical training, and his work on community-level interventions. He also tackles the colonial history of Zimbabwe, the link between incarceration and mental illness, and the days when homosexuality (as one example) was a psychiatric diagnosis. The book opens with the story of the “friendship bench,” a place for people to share their burden with (trained) elders. It seems a charming anecdote, until you learn that the intervention proved to be more effective than usual care. The program increased access in a country that, at the time, had only 12 psychiatrists. This story also sets the stage for Kidia’s argument that mental health is determined by a multitude of culturally relevant factors that go well beyond brain chemicals and genetics. He explores structural aspects of society that influence mental health, such as colonialism, income inequality, racism, the criminal justice system, and a culture of productivity. He critiques the evolution of psychiatric care; in the U.S., for instance, people deemed mentally ill have been lobotomized, psychoanalyzed, and institutionalized—strategies that have not stood the test of time. Current treatments rely on medication and talk therapy, which the author asserts are sometimes helpful but largely insufficient. It’s a complex story to tell, and it requires patience and an open mind in the reader. Every time you think the author is going off on a tangent, he succeeds in connecting things back to mental health.
An ambitious take on the diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues viewed through a cross-cultural lens.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780593594285
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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