Engaging and practical advice for living well.
A psychiatrist draws upon years of professional and personal experience with pain and depression management in this brief yet thorough guide to well-being.
Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis as a young doctor in her 30s, Carmichael (HEAL, A Psychiatrist’s Inspiring Story, 2013, etc.) faced a personal battle with chronic pain and depression, which led her to organize a pain clinic. There, she discovered “that neither doctors, nurses nor their patients really understood what chronic pain was or what is needed to bring about recovery.” However, she says, “I found patients for the most part very resourceful once they understood what they had to do to get better.” Indeed, Carmichael as doctor-turned-patient unravels the true meaning of “physician, heal thyself”—a phrase borrowed from Luke’s Gospel and which inspires the title of her own medical guide. Her breezy, common-sense book is a gold mine of information about pain, depression, addiction, and their treatments. In Part I, Carmichael offers her engaging understanding of pain treatment throughout history, including Chinese acupuncture and massage, opiates, and the power of spiritual belief, citing examples of miraculous healings at Lourdes. Early chapters discuss how pain works and provide solid background for the remaining review of pain and depression management and recovery modalities, from traditional medicines to laughter, exercise, nutrition, and spiritual healing. After starting with a quote from the likes of Einstein, Voltaire, and Buddha, each chapter concludes with “points to remember.” Blue boxes break up the text and offer medication tips and “try this” suggestions as well as recommended exercises and meditation practices. Along the way, the author discusses the historical evolution of pain theories, from religious to more mechanistic and scientific foundations, and includes studies that demonstrate a strong emotional component to the perception of pain. “Even for the scientist,” she says, “pain, anger, and fear are all emotions that tell us to wake up and do something different.”
Engaging and practical advice for living well.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1482784718
Page Count: 236
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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