Bibliograph

Strangers to ourselves, unsettled minds and the stories that make us, Rachel Aviv

Type

Label

Strangers to ourselves, unsettled minds and the stories that make us, Rachel Aviv

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references

resource.biographical

collective biography

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Strangers to ourselves

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1331750176

Responsibility statement

Rachel Aviv

Sub title

unsettled minds and the stories that make us

Summary

In Strangers to Ourselves, a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman, celebrated as a saint, who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children's forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who, after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis, decides to go off her meds because she doesn't know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv's exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel--until it no longer does

Table Of Contents

Prologue: Rachel "Someone better than me" -- Ray "Am I really this? Am I not this? What am I?" -- Bapu "Is this difficulty I am facing the lesson of total surrender?" -- Naomi "You're not listening to me" -- Laura "He could read my mind, as though I didn't need to explain myself" -- Epilogue: Hava "Stranger to myself"

Target audience

adult

Classification