Why read The Mind and the Moon?

Book cover of The Mind and the Moon: My Brother's Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches

Book description

“A profound and powerful work of essential reporting." —The New York Times Book Review

An important—and intimate—interrogation of how we treat mental illness and how we understand ourselves

In the early 1960s, JFK declared that science would take us to the moon. He also declared that science would make the…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Mind and the Moon as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Deborah Kasdan

Author

Psychiatric medications are prescribed more judiciously than when my sister first took them, but still many people find them intolerable.

Bergner first encountered mental illness when his younger brother Bob was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after dancing on a ferry to the rhythm of the ocean. Sadly, his parents believed that dancing was a symptom to be eliminated with higher doses of lithium.

Bergner finds two others to share their experiences: a roller derby star turned peer counselor, who heard voices since childhood; and a lawyer who feels doomed to failure despite his achievements in important cases. All three discontinue…

From Deborah's list on startling encounters with mental illness.