Walk into a bookstore and you’ll find tables stacked with self-help books for every conceivable problem. But sometimes the wisest advice is hidden in the memoir section.
These first-person testimonies can provide evidence that setbacks can be overcome. “The way the narrator creates meaning challenges us to think about the meaning we’ve created in our own lives,” said Jonathan Adler, a psychology professor at Olin College of Technology. “This is an invitation to recognize that you are interpreting your own story, and that you have choices about how you interpret it.”
We asked therapists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals to recommend memoirs that chronicle what it’s like to struggle and find your footing again. Here are the seven titles that ranked high on the list.
Dr. Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, details his experience living with bipolar disorder, or manic depression, since the memoir was first published in 1995. Masu.
She also spoke of the long “war” she waged against herself by intermittently resisting medication. “This is a very honest account of the struggle of staying in treatment and staying in treatment when the highs of bipolar disorder are so intense,” said New York City therapist Alexis Tomarken. .
Harriet Lerner, a psychotherapist in Lawrence, Kansas, and author of “Dance of Anger: A Woman’s Guide to Changing Intimate Relationship Patterns,” says she recommends this book to people with bipolar disorder. There are many cases, but he said, “I don’t recommend it for patients with bipolar disorder.” Because reading this book can be an emotional experience.
The title, which won the 2010 National Book Award for Nonfiction, reflects on Ms. Smith’s path as a poet, performer, and visual artist in New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Troubled and unstable by the political violence and fluid relationships of the time, she sometimes fell into despair. However, she shared a dedication to art with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, which stabilized and encouraged her.
“As someone who’s not an artist, it was inspiring to see that kind of effort,” said Ben Endres, a psychotherapist in Milwaukee, who recommends the book to anyone looking to break through conventional expectations. He added that he would recommend it.
Walls, a novelist and former journalist, recalls growing up in a household where she and her siblings were often forced to fend for themselves.
Growing up with parents who had untreated mental health issues, Walls’ resilience was credited to Nedra Grover Tawab, a therapist in Charlotte, North Carolina, and author of Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships. “deeply empathized” with. “It’s very helpful to see someone go through a difficult time in their life and see a light at the end of the tunnel,” she said of her 2005 memoir.
For people grappling with family issues, especially difficult sibling relationships, the book can illuminate how families can be affected differently by the same event, she said.
In Springsteen’s searing account of his rise to rock stardom, he talks about his decades-long battle with depression and the great work he has done with the help of medication and ongoing therapy to maintain his mental health. We also offer an all-access pass to everything you’ve been paying attention to.
Endres recommended the book, published in 2017, for Springsteen’s courage in accepting depression without prejudice and considering other challenges. “He talks openly about his family relationships, his emotions, his sex life, and I think it helps others understand themselves, even if their experiences are very different from his own.” ” Endres said.
In “Strangers to Ourselves,” New Yorker staff writer Rachel Aviv describes her experiences as a psychiatric patient, including weeks spent in the anorexia ward of a children’s hospital at the age of six. Analyzing history. When people undergo a mental health diagnosis, both internally and externally, that is the central theme of this 2022 title, a memoir and other people who have been treated for severe mental distress. The stories of are interwoven.
Aviv’s book “helps us understand how unquestioningly we apply psychiatric language and diagnoses, and how reductionist that can be,” says Aviv, a psychiatrist and author of The said Dr. Mark Epstein, author of Zen of Therapy. The book also provides a fascinating look inside the author’s mind as she was hospitalized as a young girl, showing how the patience and tolerance of her parents, teachers, and therapists facilitated her recovery. , he said.
After experiencing his first major depression in his early 30s, Solomon sought to understand the causes of depression and how it is understood and treated around the world. Mr. Solomon, a journalist and essayist, wrote about it all in this wide-ranging memoir published in 2001 that won both the National Book Award for Nonfiction and the Lambda Literary Award for Autobiography/Memoir.
Dr. Adler said he “exhibited a hunger for stories, moving from culture to culture in an encyclopedic manner” to make sense of his experiences. “This is a revelation for anyone whose life has been affected by depression, and for many of us as well.
Waves, by Sonali Deraniyagala
Deraniyagala lost her parents, husband and two young children in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and wrote about the aftermath in her 2013 memoir “Wave.”
The story explores aspects of grief that people “often feel but don’t talk about.” It’s the way you can forget what you’ve lost for a moment, the way you become obsessed with it, the chaos and disorder of it, and the loneliness and sadness that follows. We don’t understand the language,” Dr. Tomarken said.
Deraniyagala returns to the beach hotel in Sri Lanka where he lost his family during the Christmas holidays, and years later, when he visits his London home, which has remained largely untouched since he left on his trip, the “waves” reflect the light. In this way, we explore the question of “will it penetrate?” Dr. Tomarken said, unexpectedly saturating the darkness.
