List

A groundbreaking tour of the human mind that illuminates the biological nature of our inner worlds and emotions, through gripping, moving—and, at times, harrowing—clinical stories

“[A] scintillating and moving analysis of the human brain and emotions.”—Nature

“Beautifully connects the inner feelings within all human beings to deep insights from modern psychiatry and neuroscience.”—Robert Lefkowitz, Nobel Laureate
Karl Deisseroth has spent his life pursuing truths about the human mind, both as a renowned clinical psychiatrist and as a researcher creating and developing the revolutionary field of optogenetics, which uses light to help decipher the brain’s workings. In Projections, he combines his knowledge of the brain’s inner circuitry with a deep empathy for his patients to examine what mental illness reveals about the human mind and the origin of human feelings—how the broken can illuminate the unbroken.

Through cutting-edge research and gripping case studies from Deisseroth’s own patients, Projections tells a larger story about the material origins of human emotion, bridging the gap between the ancient circuits of our brain and the poignant moments of suffering in our daily lives. The stories of Deisseroth’s patients are rich with humanity and shine an unprecedented light on the self—and the ways in which it can break down. A young woman with an eating disorder reveals how the mind can rebel against the brain’s most primitive drives of hunger and thirst; an older man, smothered into silence by depression and dementia, shows how humans evolved to feel not only joy but also its absence; and a lonely Uighur woman far from her homeland teaches both the importance—and challenges—of deep social bonds.

Illuminating, literary, and essential, Projections is a revelatory, immensely powerful work. It transforms our understanding not only of the brain but of ourselves as social beings—giving vivid illustrations through science and resonant human stories of our yearning for connection and meaning.

Written with authority and compassion, this is the essential resource for individuals and families seeking expert guidance on diagnosis, treatment, and recovery, featuring inspiring, true stories from real people in their own words.

Millions of people in the United States are affected by mental illness every year, and the Covid-19 pandemic only further exposed the shortcomings of the American mental health system. Too many are confused, afraid, and overwhelmed, with many asking themselves the same questions: What does it mean when different doctors give me different diagnoses? What if my insurance won't cover my treatment? Will I ever feel better? Families and friends are often left in the dark about how best to help their loved ones, from dealing with financial and logistical issues, to handling the emotional challenges of loving someone who is suffering.

You Are Not Alone is here to offer help. Written by Dr. Ken Duckworth with the wisdom of a psychiatrist and the vulnerability of a peer, this comprehensive guide centers the poignant lived experiences of over 125 individuals from across the country whose first-person stories illustrate the diversity of mental health journeys. This book also provides

• Practical guidance on dealing with a vast array of mental health conditions and navigating care
• Research-based evidence on what treatments and approaches work
• Insight and advice from renowned clinical experts and practitioners
   

This singular resource--the first book from the National Alliance on Mental Illness--is a powerful reminder that help is here, and you are never alone.

How to keep calm, carry on, and reconnect during times of social isolation and emotional crisis.

Although spending time alone for short periods may be restorative and helpful, unintentional or involuntary isolation can have profound detrimental effects on emotional and physical health. We all need social interaction and meaningful relationships in our lives to be well and thrive. Without them, we flounder.

In Reconnecting after Isolation, Dr. Susan J. Noonan draws on our collective experience of the COVID-19 pandemic to help readers deal with the emotional impact of social isolation. Speaking as both a provider and recipient of mental health care services, Noonan combines her professional and personal experiences in an evidence-based and practical guide. Drawing on meticulous research and interviews with four psychologists, she outlines steps to overcome the emotional trauma of isolation.

The book touches on how social isolation, loneliness, and stress affect each of us individually and can sometimes provoke depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidality, and substance use. Describing specific lifestyle interventions that may help, it offers tips for

• developing effective coping skills
• facing isolation-induced fears
adapting effectively to the changes in our personal, family, work, academic, and social lives caused by imposed isolation
• finding effective, culturally sensitive mental health care
• improving sleep hygiene
• building and maintaining resilience
• adopting a healthy diet
• overcoming the fatigue burnout
• grieving a loss
• engaging in regular physical exercise
• keeping a daily routine or structure
• maintaining contact with others

Dr. Noonan also discusses re-entry anxiety, the challenging experience many have upon returning to their prior lifestyle, and the difficulty of establishing new school and work routines following social isolation. Accessible and compassionate, Reconnecting after Isolation empowers individuals to manage their own challenges, offering them a better chance of recovery and of staying well.

A concise, essential guide to living with bipolar disorder by an internationally known expert.

When a diagnosis of bipolar disorder enters your life, you may not be sure where to turn for accurate information about this potentially devastating but treatable illness. Whether you yourself have been diagnosed, or a spouse, parent, child, friend, or employee has developed the illness, the need for information and advice is acute.

Presenting the essentials of diagnosis and treatment clearly and succinctly, leading psychiatrist Dr. Francis Mark Mondimore distills everything you need to know about bipolar disorder in this new indispensable guide. In down-to-earth language, Dr. Mondimore explains what bipolar disorder is and how you (or your loved one) can live your best life with the help of medications, therapy, the support of family and friends, and medical care.

An extensive list of references is included, along with additional suggested reading materials and online resources. Realistic clinical descriptions and anecdotes reflecting on fascinating historical details associated with this condition provide further information. The Concise Guide to Bipolar Disorder is an excellent up-to-date resource for the newly diagnosed or those seeking rapid answers to the most common questions about bipolar disorder.

Past Praise for Books by Francis Mark Mondimore, MD

"Offers advice on how to live with bipolar disorder, and how not to become its victim."—Large Print Reviews

"An enlightened, pragmatic, and empathic resource for this very complex and challenging illness."—Journal of Clinical Psychiatry

"An absolute gold mine for those with the disorder and their families: thorough, candid, and up-to-date advice, full of new possibilities for help."—Kirkus Reviews

A New York Times Notable Book of 2011
A Publisher's Weekly Top 10 Book of 2011
A Kirkus Reviews Top 25 Best Fiction of 2011 Title
One of Library Journal's Best Books of 2011
A Salon Best Fiction of 2011 title
One of The Telegraph’s Best Fiction Books of the Year 2011

It’s the early 1980s—the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever. In the cafés on College Hill, the wised-up kids are inhaling Derrida and listening to Talking Heads. But Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English major, is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels.

As Madeleine tries to understand why “it became laughable to read writers like Cheever and Updike, who wrote about the suburbia Madeleine and most of her friends had grown up in, in favor of reading the Marquis de Sade, who wrote about deflowering virgins in eighteenth-century France,” real life, in the form of two very different guys, intervenes. Leonard Bankhead—charismatic loner, college Darwinist, and lost Portland boy—suddenly turns up in a semiotics seminar, and soon Madeleine finds herself in a highly charged erotic and intellectual relationship with him. At the same time, her old “friend” Mitchell Grammaticus—who’s been reading Christian mysticism and generally acting strange—resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is destined to be his mate.

Over the next year, as the members of the triangle in this amazing, spellbinding novel graduate from college and enter the real world, events force them to reevaluate everything they learned in school. Leonard and Madeleine move to a biology Laboratory on Cape Cod, but can’t escape the secret responsible for Leonard’s seemingly inexhaustible energy and plunging moods. And Mitchell, traveling around the world to get Madeleine out of his mind, finds himself face-to-face with ultimate questions about the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the true nature of love.

Are the great love stories of the nineteenth century dead? Or can there be a new story, written for today and alive to the realities of feminism, sexual freedom, prenups, and divorce? With devastating wit and an abiding understanding of and affection for his characters, Jeffrey Eugenides revives the motivating energies of the Novel, while creating a story so contemporary and fresh that it reads like the intimate journal of our own lives.

With candor and humor, a manic-depressive Iranian-American Muslim chronicles her experiences with both clinical and cultural bipolarity.

Born to Persian parents at the height of the Islamic Revolution, Melody Moezzi was raised amid a vibrant, affectionate, and gossipy Iranian diaspora in the American heartland of Dayton, Ohio. Moezzi enjoyed all the amenities of a typical American youth- Froot Loops, Saturday morning cartoons, biased history textbooks. But she als experienced a distinctly Iranian education and uprbinging- Farsi class, unibrows, safron on everything, and PH.D.s or M.D.s for the whole family.

When Moezzi began battling a severe physical illness at eighteen, her loud, loving community of adoptive Iranian aunties and uncles stepped up, filling her hospital rooms with roses, lilies, and hyacinths. But years later, when she attempted suicide and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, there were no flowers. Through several stays in psychiatric hospitals, bombarded with tranquilizers, mood stabilizers, and antipsychotics, Moezzi was encouraged to keep her illness a secret - by both her family and an increasingly callous and indifferent medical establishment.

As Moezzi learned firsthand, there's something dangerous about the widespread secrecy surrounding mental illness. It breeds shame and isolation - both of which can be much more devastating than any psychiatric condition alone. Finally finding balance after years of treatment, Moezzi chose to become an outspoken advocate for the mentally ill.

Funny, caustic, and utterly unique, Haldol and Hyacinthsis the moving story of a woman who refused to become torn across cultural and social lines. Moezzi reports from the front lines of the no-man's-land between sickness and sanity, from the Midwest and the middle East. Told through a distinctive and fascinating cultural lens, Haldol and Hyacinthsis a tribute to the healing power of hope and humor.

'A compulsively readable account of one woman's descent into the hell of this insidious illness . . . Moezzi is the newest and perhaps the most important voice in this genre. Those suffering with mental illness (and their family members and friends) should read this book as soon as possible. Moezzi's story will save lives.' Andy Behrman, author of Electroboy- A Memoir of Mania

'A dazzling flower with poisonous thorns, Melody Moezzi's memoir describes formidable, twin conflicting identities, Bipolar, she wrestles frenzied, Hula-Hooping highs and psychotic, suicidal lows. Irnian-American, she finds Muslims scarce in the Bible Belt where she grew up, and learns that in Iran, there isn't even a word for 'bipolar'. Her struggle to keep these forces in balance is an immense task, and she tells her story with confidence and a fabulously wry sense of humor.' Ellen Forney, author of Marbles

'Haldol and Hyacinthsis like th brawling, big-hearted, and hilarious little sister of Darkness Visibleand The Noonday Demon. But Melody Moezzi is no imitator and she doesn't write in anyone's shadow. She stands alone and speaks her brilliant, fierce, inimitable mind, and we're the better for it.' Josh Hanagarne, author of The World's Strongest Librarian

'Melody Moezzi pulls no punches. A big brain and a big heart inform this courageous and often hilarious memoir, which crosses cultures and breaks stigmas. There is, quite simply, nothing like it. Nothing as smart, nothing as frank, nothing as information.' Lee Smith, author of The Last Girls

'With beautiful grace, sardonic humor and sharp intellect, Melody Moezzi casts a light where there is usually darkness. Haldol and Hyacinthsmay be a book about an American Muslim woman, but it speaks to the struggle of all p

A riveting, revelatory, and moving account of the author's struggles with anxiety, and of the history of efforts by scientists, philosophers, and writers to understand the condition

As recently as thirty-five years ago, anxiety did not exist as a diagnostic category. Today, it is the most common form of officially classified mental illness. Scott Stossel gracefully guides us across the terrain of an affliction that is pervasive yet too often misunderstood.

Drawing on his own long-standing battle with anxiety, Stossel presents an astonishing history, at once intimate and authoritative, of the efforts to understand the condition from medical, cultural, philosophical, and experiential perspectives. He ranges from the earliest medical reports of Galen and Hippocrates, through later observations by Robert Burton and Søren Kierkegaard, to the investigations by great nineteenth-century scientists, such as Charles Darwin, William James, and Sigmund Freud, as they began to explore its sources and causes, to the latest research by neuroscientists and geneticists. Stossel reports on famous individuals who struggled with anxiety, as well as on the afflicted generations of his own family. His portrait of anxiety reveals not only the emotion's myriad manifestations and the anguish anxiety produces but also the countless psychotherapies, medications, and other (often outlandish) treatments that have been developed to counteract it. Stossel vividly depicts anxiety's human toll--its crippling impact, its devastating power to paralyze--while at the same time exploring how those who suffer from it find ways to manage and control it.
My Age of Anxiety is learned and empathetic, humorous and inspirational, offering the reader great insight into the biological, cultural, and environmental factors that contribute to the affliction.

On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother, Thomas, entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut, public library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable. . . .

One of the most acclaimed novels of our time, Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True is a story of alienation and connection, devastation and renewal, at once joyous, heartbreaking, poignant, mystical, and powerfully, profoundly human.

From the NYT bestselling author of The Monopolists, the "fascinating" (People) story of Olympian Kevin Hall and the syndrome that makes him believe he stars in a television show of his life.

Meet Kevin Hall: brother, son, husband, father, and Olympic sailor. Kevin has an Ivy League degree, a winning smile, and throughout his adult life, he has been engaged in an ongoing battle with a person that doesn't exist to anyone but him: the Director. In the tradition of Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind, journalist and NYT bestselling author Mary Pilon's The Kevin Show reveals the many-sided struggle--of Kevin, his family, and the medical profession--to understand and treat a psychiatric disorder whose euphoric highs and creative ties to pop culture have become inextricable from Kevin's experience of himself.

Kevin suffers from what doctors are beginning to call the "Truman Show" delusion, a form of bipolar disorder named for the 1998 movie in which the main character realizes he is the star of a reality TV show. When the Director commands Kevin to do things, the results often lead to handcuffs, hospitalization, or both. Once he nearly drove a car into Boston Harbor. His girlfriend, now wife, was in the passenger seat.

Interweaving Kevin's perspective--including excerpts from his journals and sketches--with police reports, medical records, and interviews with those who were present at key moments in his life, The Kevin Show is a bracing, suspenseful, and eye-opening view of the role that mental health plays in a seemingly ordinary life.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. Her memoir of the next two years is a "poignant, honest ... triumphantly funny ... and heartbreaking story" (The New York Times Book Review).
The ward for teenage girls in the McLean psychiatric hospital was as renowned for its famous clientele—Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles—as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary. Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties.

Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching document that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.

‟A tender but unflinching portrayal of the bond between two sisters." --Celeste Ng, New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere

"There's not a false note to be found, and everywhere there are nuggets to savor. Why did it have to end?" --O Magazine

"A bold debut. . . Lee sensitively relays experiences of immigration and mental illness . . . a distinct literary voice." --Entertainment Weekly

"Extraordinary . . . If you love anyone at all, this book is going to get you." --USA Today

A dazzling novel of two sisters and their emotional journey through love, loyalty, and heartbreak

Two Chinese-American sisters--Miranda, the older, responsible one, always her younger sister's protector; Lucia, the headstrong, unpredictable one, whose impulses are huge and, often, life changing. When Lucia starts hearing voices, it is Miranda who must find a way to reach her sister. Lucia impetuously plows ahead, but the bitter constant is that she is, in fact, mentally ill. Lucia lives life on a grand scale, until, inevitably, she crashes to earth.

Miranda leaves her own self-contained life in Switzerland to rescue her sister again--but only Lucia can decide whether she wants to be saved. The bonds of sisterly devotion stretch across oceans--but what does it take to break them?

Everything Here Is Beautiful is, at its heart, an immigrant story, and a young woman's quest to find fulfillment and a life unconstrained by her illness. But it's also an unforgettable, gut-wrenching story of the sacrifices we make to truly love someone--and when loyalty to one's self must prevail over all.

"Moments like this are buds on the tree of life. Flowers of darkness they are."

In this vivid portrait of a single day in a woman's life, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of preparation for a party while in her mind she is something much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house for friends and neighbors, she is flooded with remembrances of the past--the passionate loves of her carefree youth, her practical choice of husband, and the approach and retreat of war. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices that brought her there, hesitantly looking ahead to the unfamiliar work of growing old.

From the introspective Clarissa, to the lover who never fully recovered from her rejection, to a war-ravaged stranger in the park, the characters and scope of Mrs. Dalloway reshape our sense of ordinary life making it one of the most "moving, revolutionary artworks of the twentieth century" (Michael Cunningham).

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library.

"Destined to become a modern classic." —Entertainment Weekly

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FEEL TRULY ALIVE?

At the age of 24, Matt Haig's world caved in. He could see no way to go on living. This is the true story of how he came through crisis, triumphed over an illness that almost destroyed him and learned to live again.

A moving, funny and joyous exploration of how to live better, love better and feel more alive, Reasons to Stay Alive is more than a memoir. It is a book about making the most of your time on earth.

"I wrote this book because the oldest clichés remain the truest. Time heals. The bottom of the valley never provides the clearest view. The tunnel does have light at the end of it, even if we haven't been able to see it . . . Words, just sometimes, really can set you free."

"A feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits."—The Washington Post

The dazzling reader-favorite about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the acclaimed author of How To Stop Time and The Comfort Book.
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick

“Beautifully written and incredibly funny, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is about the importance of friendship and human connection. I fell in love with Eleanor, an eccentric and regimented loner whose life beautifully unfolds after a chance encounter with a stranger; I think you will fall in love, too!” —Reese Witherspoon
No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine. 

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. 

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .
 
The only way to survive is to open your heart. 

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • Sadness is your superpower. In her new masterpiece, the author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet explores the power of the bittersweet personality, revealing a misunderstood side of mental health and creativity while offering a roadmap to facing grief in order to live life to the fullest.

“Bittersweet has the power to transform the way you see your life and the world.”—OPRAH
“Grabs you by the heart and doesn’t let go.”—BRENÉ BROWN, author of Atlas of the Heart
“Susan Cain has described and validated my existence once again!”—GLENNON DOYLE, author of Untamed
“The perfect cure for toxic positivity.”—ADAM GRANT, author of Think Again

LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, Mashable

Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of long­ing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute aware­ness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired. 
 
If you’ve ever wondered why you like sad music . . . 
If you find comfort or inspiration in a rainy day . . . 
If you react intensely to music, art, nature, and beauty . . .
 
Then you probably identify with the bitter­sweet state of mind.
 
With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an un­tapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she em­ploys the same mix of research, storytelling, and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, con­nection, and transcendence.
 
Cain shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain, whether from a death or breakup, addiction or illness. If we don’t acknowledge our own heartache, she says, we can end up inflicting it on others via abuse, domination, or neglect. But if we realize that all humans know—or will know—loss and suffering, we can turn toward one another. 
 
At a time of profound discord and personal anxiety, Bittersweet brings us together in deep and unexpected ways.

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under -- maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction!

"Brilliantly faceted and extremely funny. . . . While I was reading it, I was making a list of all the people I wanted to send it to, until I realized that I wanted to send it to everyone I know." -- Ann Patchett

The internationally bestselling sensation, a compulsively readable novel--spiky, sharp, intriguingly dark, and tender--that Emma Straub has named one of her favorite books of the year

Martha Friel just turned forty. Once, she worked at Vogue and planned to write a novel. Now, she creates internet content. She used to live in a pied-à-terre in Paris. Now she lives in a gated community in Oxford, the only person she knows without a PhD, a baby or both, in a house she hates but cannot bear to leave. But she must leave, now that her husband Patrick--the kind who cooks, throws her birthday parties, who loves her and has only ever wanted her to be happy--has just moved out.

Because there's something wrong with Martha, and has been for a long time. When she was seventeen, a little bomb went off in her brain and she was never the same. But countless doctors, endless therapy, every kind of drug later, she still doesn't know what's wrong, why she spends days unable to get out of bed or alienates both strangers and her loved ones with casually cruel remarks.

And she has nowhere to go except her childhood home: a bohemian (dilapidated) townhouse in a romantic (rundown) part of London--to live with her mother, a minorly important sculptor (and major drinker) and her father, a famous poet (though unpublished) and try to survive without the devoted, potty-mouthed sister who made all the chaos bearable back then, and is now too busy or too fed up to deal with her.

But maybe, by starting over, Martha will get to write a better ending for herself--and she'll find out that she's not quite finished after all.

The revised and expanded third edition of the bestselling guide to understanding borderline personality disorder—with advice for communicating with and helping the borderline individuals in your life.

After more than three decades as the essential guide to borderline personality disorder (BPD), the third edition of I Hate You—Don’t Leave Me now reflects the most up-to-date research that has opened doors to the neurobiological, genetic, and developmental roots of the disorder, as well as connections between BPD and substance abuse, sexual abuse, post-traumatic stress syndrome, ADHD, and eating disorders.

Both pharmacological and psychotherapeutic advancements point to real hope for success in the treatment and understanding of BPD.

This expanded and revised edition is an invaluable resource for those diagnosed with BPD and their family, friends, and colleagues, as well as professionals and students in the field, and the practical tools and advice are easy to understand and use in your day-to-day interactions with the borderline individuals in your life.

Acclaimed author Jonathan Rosen’s haunting investigation of the forces that led his closest childhood friend, Michael Laudor, from the heights of brilliant promise to the forensic psychiatric hospital where he has lived since killing the woman he loved. A story about friendship, love, and the price of self-delusion, The Best Minds explores the ways in which we understand—and fail to understand—mental illness

When the Rosens moved to New Rochelle in 1973, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor became inseparable. Both children of college professors, the boys were best friends and keen competitors, and, when they both got into Yale, seemed set to join the American meritocratic elite.

Michael blazed through college in three years, graduating summa cum laude and landing a top-flight consulting job. But all wasn’t as it seemed. One day, Jonathan received the fateful call: Michael had suffered a serious psychotic break and was institutionalized at a New York City psychiatric hospital where he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He would stay there for nine months before transitioning to a halfway house.

Just before his break, Michael had been accepted to Yale Law School, and now he planned to play that one card still left to him. Still struggling mightily with schizophrenia, Michael made it through the top law school in the country. His extraordinary story was featured in the New York Times; an agent sold his memoir to a major publisher for a large sum; Ron Howard swept in to acquire film rights. It was all a dream come true for Michael and his tirelessly supportive girlfriend Carrie. But then Michael, in the grip of an unshakeable paranoid fantasy, stabbed Carrie to death with a kitchen knife and became a front-page story of an entirely different sort.

The Best Minds is Jonathan Rosen's brilliant and heartbreaking account of an American tragedy. It is a story about the bonds of family, friendship, and community, the promise of intellectual achievement and the lure of utopian solutions. At times tender and funny, and at times harrowing and almost unbearably sad, The Best Minds is an extreme version of a story that is tragically familiar to all too many. In the hands of a writer of Jonathan Rosen's gifts and dedication, its significance will echo widely.

As seen on Good Morning America's SEPTEMBER 2020 READING LIST and FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2020!

"We need to read stories about folks who have been through hell and kept going... Fascinating." —Glennon Doyle, A Favorite Book of 2020 on Good Morning America

"Gildiner is nothing short of masterful—as both a therapist and writer. In these pages, she has gorgeously captured both the privilege of being given access to the inner chambers of people's lives, and the meaning that comes from watching them grow into the selves they were meant to be." —Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

In this fascinating narrative, therapist Catherine Gildiner’s presents five of what she calls her most heroic and memorable patients. Among them: a successful, first generation Chinese immigrant musician suffering sexual dysfunction; a young woman whose father abandoned her at age nine with her younger siblings in an isolated cottage in the depth of winter; and a glamorous workaholic whose narcissistic, negligent mother greeted her each morning of her childhood with "Good morning, Monster."

Each patient presents a mystery, one that will only be unpacked over years. They seek Gildiner's help to overcome an immediate challenge in their lives, but discover that the source of their suffering has been long buried.

As in such recent classics as The Glass Castle and Educated, each patient embodies self-reflection, stoicism, perseverance, and forgiveness as they work unflinchingly to face the truth. Gildiner's account of her journeys with them is moving, insightful, and sometimes very funny. Good Morning Monster offers an almost novelistic, behind-the-scenes look into the therapist's office, illustrating how the process can heal even the most unimaginable wounds.

A powerful, poetic memoir of an Indigenous woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Band in the Pacific Northwest—this New York Times bestseller and Emma Watson Book Club pick is “an illuminating account of grief, abuse and the complex nature of the Native experience . . . at once raw and achingly beautiful (NPR).

Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder, Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father―an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist―who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.

Mailhot trusts the reader to understand that memory isn't exact, but melded to imagination, pain, and what we can bring ourselves to accept. Her unique and at times unsettling voice graphically illustrates her mental state. As she writes, she discovers her own true voice, seizes control of her story, and, in so doing, reestablishes her connection to her family, to her people, and to her place in the world.

As seen in THE NEW YORK TIMES • READER'S DIGEST • SPIRITUALITY & HEALTH • HUFFPOST

Featured on NPR's RADIO TIMES and WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO

When a painful loss or life-shattering event upends your world, here is the first thing to know: there is nothing wrong with grief. "Grief is simply love in its most wild and painful form," says Megan Devine. "It is a natural and sane response to loss."

So, why does our culture treat grief like a disease to be cured as quickly as possible?

In It’s OK That You’re Not OK, Megan Devine offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we try to help others who have endured tragedy. Having experienced grief from both sides—as both a therapist and as a woman who witnessed the accidental drowning of her beloved partner—Megan writes with deep insight about the unspoken truths of loss, love, and healing. She debunks the culturally prescribed goal of returning to a normal, "happy" life, replacing it with a far healthier middle path, one that invites us to build a life alongside grief rather than seeking to overcome it. In this compelling and heartful book, you’ll learn:

• Why well-meaning advice, therapy, and spiritual wisdom so often end up making it harder for people in grief
• How challenging the myths of grief—doing away with stages, timetables, and unrealistic ideals about how grief should unfold—allows us to accept grief as a mystery to be honored instead of a problem to solve
• Practical guidance for managing stress, improving sleep, and decreasing anxiety without trying to "fix" your pain
• How to help the people you love—with essays to teach us the best skills, checklists, and suggestions for supporting and comforting others through the grieving process

Many people who have suffered a loss feel judged, dismissed, and misunderstood by a culture that wants to "solve" grief. Megan writes, "Grief no more needs a solution than love needs a solution." Through stories, research, life tips, and creative and mindfulness-based practices, she offers a unique guide through an experience we all must face—in our personal lives, in the lives of those we love, and in the wider world.

It’s OK That You’re Not OK is a book for grieving people, those who love them, and all those seeking to love themselves—and each other—better.

#1 New York Times bestseller

“Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society.” —Alexander McFarlane, Director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies

A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing in this New York Times bestseller
 
Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.

With uncommon humanity, candor, wit, and erudition, award-winning author Andrew Solomon takes the reader on a journey of incomparable range and resonance into the most pervasive of family secrets. His contribution to our understanding not only of mental illness but also of the human condition is truly stunning.

"The Noonday Demon" examines depression in personal, cultural, and scientific terms. Drawing on his own struggles with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, doctors and scientists, policymakers and politicians, drug designers and philosophers, Solomon reveals the subtle complexities and sheer agony of the disease. He confronts the challenge of defining the illness and describes the vast range of available medications, the efficacy of alternative treatments, and the impact the malady has had on various demographic populations around the world and throughout history. He also explores the thorny patch of moral and ethical questions posed by emerging biological explanations for mental illness.

The depth of human experience Solomon chronicles, the range of his intelligence, and his boundless curiosity and compassion will change the reader's view of the world.

An intimate, insightful, at times even humorous exploration of why the thought of death is so compulsive for some while demonstrating that there’s always another solution—from the acclaimed writer and professor of philosophy, based on his viral essay, “I’m Still Here.”

“A rock for people who’ve been troubled by suicidal ideation, or have someone in their lives who is.” —The New York Times

“If you’re going to write a book about suicide, you have to be willing to say the true things, the scary things, the humiliating things. Because everybody who is being honest with themselves knows at least a little bit about the subject. If you lie or if you fudge, the reader will know.”

The last time Clancy Martin tried to kill himself was in his basement with a dog leash. It was one of over ten attempts throughout the course of his life. But he didn’t die, and like many who consider taking their own lives, he hid the attempt from his wife, family, coworkers, and students, slipping back into his daily life with a hoarse voice, a raw neck, and series of vague explanations.

In How Not to Kill Yourself, Martin chronicles his multiple suicide attempts in an intimate depiction of the mindset of someone obsessed with self-destruction. He argues that, for the vast majority of suicides, an attempt does not just come out of the blue, nor is it merely a violent reaction to a particular crisis or failure, but is the culmination of a host of long-standing issues. He also looks at the thinking of a number of great writers who have attempted suicide and detailed their experiences (such as David Foster Wallace, Yiyun Li, Akutagawa, Nelly Arcan, and others), at what the history of philosophy has to say both for and against suicide, and at the experiences of those who have reached out to him across the years to share their own struggles.

The result combines memoir with critical inquiry to powerfully give voice to what for many has long been incomprehensible, while showing those presently grappling with suicidal thoughts that they are not alone, and that the desire to kill oneself—like other self-destructive desires—is almost always temporary and avoidable.

One of Today's Ten Best Inspirational Books, 2020
By the creator and host of the acclaimed mental health podcast Depresh Mode with John Moe

"[A] path to deeper understanding and openness, by way of laughter in the dark" ―The New York Times Book Review

"Filled with heart, humor and hope." ―People

"A funny, honest book." ―Neil Gaiman

"Candid and funny and intimate." ―Susan Orlean

For years John Moe, critically-acclaimed public radio personality and host of The Hilarious World of Depression podcast, struggled with depression; it plagued his family and claimed the life of his brother in 2007. As Moe came to terms with his own illness, he began to see similar patterns of behavior and coping mechanisms surfacing in conversations with others, including high-profile comedians who’d struggled with the disease. Moe saw that there was tremendous comfort and community in open dialogue about these shared experiences and that humor had a unique power. Thus was born the podcast The Hilarious World of Depression.

Inspired by the immediate success of the podcast, Moe has written a remarkable investigation of the disease, part memoir of his own journey, part treasure trove of laugh-out-loud stories and insights drawn from years of interviews with some of the most brilliant minds facing similar challenges. Throughout the course of this powerful narrative, depression’s universal themes come to light, among them, struggles with identity, lack of understanding of the symptoms, the challenges of work-life, self-medicating, the fallout of the disease in the lives of our loved ones, the tragedy of suicide, and the hereditary aspects of the disease.

The Hilarious World of Depression illuminates depression in an entirely fresh and inspiring way.

A bold, expert, and actionable map for the re-invention of America’s broken mental health care system.

“Healing is truly one of the best books ever written about mental illness, and I think I’ve read them all." —Pete Earley, author of Crazy

As director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas Insel was giving a presentation when the father of a boy with schizophrenia yelled from the back of the room, “Our house is on fire and you’re telling me about the chemistry of the paint! What are you doing to put out the fire?” Dr. Insel knew in his heart that the answer was not nearly enough. The gargantuan American mental health industry was not healing millions who were desperately in need. He left his position atop the mental health research world to investigate all that was broken—and what a better path to mental health might look like.
 
In the United States, we have treatments that work, but our system fails at every stage to deliver care well. Even before COVID, mental illness was claiming a life every eleven minutes by suicide. Quality of care varies widely, and much of the field lacks accountability. We focus on drug therapies for symptom reduction rather than on plans for long-term recovery. Care is often unaffordable and unavailable, particularly for those who need it most and are homeless or incarcerated. Where was the justice for the millions of Americans suffering from mental illness? Who was helping their families?
 
But Dr. Insel also found that we do have approaches that work, both in the U.S. and globally. Mental illnesses are medical problems, but he discovers that the cures for the crisis are not just medical, but social. This path to healing, built upon what he calls the three Ps (people, place, and purpose), is more straightforward than we might imagine. Dr. Insel offers a comprehensive plan for our failing system and for families trying to discern the way forward.
 
The fruit of a lifetime of expertise and a global quest for answers, Healing is a hopeful, actionable account and achievable vision for us all in this time of mental health crisis.

A classic of psychology and eating disorders, now reissued with an important, and perhaps controversial, new afterword by the author, Wasted is New York Times bestselling author Marya Hornbacher’s highly acclaimed memoir that chronicles her battle with anorexia and bulimia.

Vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching, Wasted is the memoir of how Marya Hornbacher willingly embraced hunger, drugs, sex, and death—until a particularly horrifying bout with anorexia and bulimia in college forever ended the romance of wasting away.

In this updated edition, Hornbacher, an authority in the field of eating disorders, argues that recovery is not only possible, it is necessary. But the journey is not easy or guaranteed. With a different ending to her story that adds a contemporary edge, Wasted continues to be timely and relevant.

Powerful, affecting essays on mental illness, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and a Whiting Award

An intimate, moving book written with the immediacy and directness of one who still struggles with the effects of mental and chronic illness, The Collected Schizophrenias cuts right to the core. Schizophrenia is not a single unifying diagnosis, and Esmé Weijun Wang writes not just to her fellow members of the “collected schizophrenias” but to those who wish to understand it as well. Opening with the journey toward her diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, Wang discusses the medical community’s own disagreement about labels and procedures for diagnosing those with mental illness, and then follows an arc that examines the manifestations of schizophrenia in her life. In essays that range from using fashion to present as high-functioning to the depths of a rare form of psychosis, and from the failures of the higher education system and the dangers of institutionalization to the complexity of compounding factors such as PTSD and Lyme disease, Wang’s analytical eye, honed as a former lab researcher at Stanford, allows her to balance research with personal narrative. An essay collection of undeniable power, The Collected Schizophrenias dispels misconceptions and provides insight into a condition long misunderstood.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

"Rarely have I read a book that challenged me to see myself in an entirely new light, and was at the same time laugh-out-loud funny and utterly absorbing."--Katie Couric

"This is a daring, delightful, and transformative book."--Arianna Huffington, Founder, Huffington Post and Founder & CEO, Thrive Global

"Wise, warm, smart, and funny. You must read this book."--Susan Cain, New York Times best-selling author of Quiet

From a New York Times best-selling author, psychotherapist, and national advice columnist, a hilarious, thought-provoking, and surprising new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist's world--where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).

One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose of-fice she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives -- a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys -- she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.

With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is rev-olutionary in its candor, offering a deeply per-sonal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly reveal-ing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.

In Furiously Happy, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea.

But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.

As Jenny says:

"Some people might think that being 'furiously happy' is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he's never particularly liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos.

"Most of my favorite people are dangerously fucked-up but you'd never guess because we've learned to bare it so honestly that it becomes the new normal. Like John Hughes wrote in The Breakfast Club, 'We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.' Except go back and cross out the word 'hiding.'"

Furiously Happy is about "taking those moments when things are fine and making them amazing, because those moments are what make us who we are, and they're the same moments we take into battle with us when our brains declare war on our very existence. It's the difference between "surviving life" and "living life". It's the difference between "taking a shower" and "teaching your monkey butler how to shampoo your hair." It's the difference between being "sane" and being "furiously happy."

Lawson is beloved around the world for her inimitable humor and honesty, and in Furiously Happy, she is at her snort-inducing funniest. This is a book about embracing everything that makes us who we are - the beautiful and the flawed - and then using it to find joy in fantastic and outrageous ways. Because as Jenny's mom says, "Maybe 'crazy' isn't so bad after all." Sometimes crazy is just right.

A celebrated science and health reporter offers a wry, bracingly honest account of living with anxiety.

A racing heart. Difficulty breathing. Overwhelming dread. Andrea Petersen was first diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at the age of twenty, but she later realized that she had been experiencing panic attacks since childhood. With time her symptoms multiplied. She agonized over every odd physical sensation. She developed fears of driving on highways, going to movie theaters, even licking envelopes. Although having a name for her condition was an enormous relief, it was only the beginning of a journey to understand and master it--one that took her from psychiatrists' offices to yoga retreats to the Appalachian Trail.

Woven into Petersen's personal story is a fascinating look at the biology of anxiety and the groundbreaking research that might point the way to new treatments. She compares psychoactive drugs to non-drug treatments, including biofeedback and exposure therapy. And she explores the role that genetics and the environment play in mental illness, visiting top neuroscientists and tracing her family history--from her grandmother, who, plagued by paranoia, once tried to burn down her own house, to her young daughter, in whom Petersen sees shades of herself.

Brave and empowering, this is essential reading for anyone who knows what it means to live on edge.

Universally acclaimed, rapturously reviewed, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography, and an instant New York Times bestseller, Chanel Miller's breathtaking memoir "gives readers the privilege of knowing her not just as Emily Doe, but as Chanel Miller the writer, the artist, the survivor, the fighter." (The Wrap).

"I opened Know My Name with the intention to bear witness to the story of a survivor. Instead, I found myself falling into the hands of one of the great writers and thinkers of our time. Chanel Miller is a philosopher, a cultural critic, a deep observer, a writer's writer, a true artist. I could not put this phenomenal book down." --Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and Untamed

"Know My Name is a gut-punch, and in the end, somehow, also blessedly hopeful." --Washington Post

She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford's campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral--viewed by eleven million people within four days, it was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress; it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousands wrote to say that she had given them the courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time.

Now she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. It was the perfect case, in many ways--there were eyewitnesses, Turner ran away, physical evidence was immediately secured. But her struggles with isolation and shame during the aftermath and the trial reveal the oppression victims face in even the best-case scenarios. Her story illuminates a culture biased to protect perpetrators, indicts a criminal justice system designed to fail the most vulnerable, and, ultimately, shines with the courage required to move through suffering and live a full and beautiful life.

Know My Name will forever transform the way we think about sexual assault, challenging our beliefs about what is acceptable and speaking truth to the tumultuous reality of healing. It also introduces readers to an extraordinary writer, one whose words have already changed our world. Entwining pain, resilience, and humor, this memoir will stand as a modern classic.

Chosen as a BEST BOOK OF 2019 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, TIME, Elle, Glamour, Parade, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, BookRiot

A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life

“Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly

By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years.

Both of Foo’s parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she’d moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD.

In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don’t move on from trauma—but you can learn to move with it.

Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman’s ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.