Written with the authority of experience, this book offers a viable path to true recovery.
The renowned psychiatrist shows us how coming to terms with the pandemic requires a change in thinking.
National Book Award winner Lifton, now 97, has written scores of books, mainly dealing with the effects of trauma. He believes that our society has yet to fully come to terms with the Covid-19 pandemic and its enormous consequences. He draws on the stories of Hiroshima survivors (the subject of his classic 1968 book, Death in Life), Vietnam veterans, and Holocaust survivors to illustrate the importance of finding meaning as a crucial part of psychological recovery—and physical recovery for those dealing with the long-term effects of the disease. Recovery is by no means easy, and the Hiroshima survivors (known in Japan as hibakusha, “explosion-affected persons”) had to deal with feelings of guilt as well as the loss of loved ones. Some became activists campaigning against nuclear weapons, and others became artists or writers. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, a half-destroyed building, provided a focal point for individual and communal mourning. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., is another example of how national traumas can be given expression. As such, a lasting monument to the pandemic victims, as proposed by the activist survivor organization Marked by Covid, among other entities, could help the nation move through the grieving process. A national day of remembrance would also provide a sense of unity. However, Lifton argues lucidly that the real key to recovery from the pandemic is a fundamental change in our collective mindset. We must move toward "the formation of a sense of self based significantly upon one’s connection to humankind.” In a thoughtful, pithy, and inspiring narrative, the author shows how “catastrophe calls on us to bring the mind to bear upon the most unpalatable truths of our historical epoch, to expand the limits of imagination on behalf of survival.”
Written with the authority of experience, this book offers a viable path to true recovery.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781620978153
Page Count: 192
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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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