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“To treat, even to cure, is not always to heal.” In this expansive cultural history of the treatment and healing of mental suffering, Kay Jamison writes about psychotherapy, what makes a great healer, and the role of imagination and memory in regenerating the mind. From the trauma of the battlefields of the twentieth century, to those who are grieving, depressed, or with otherwise unquiet minds, to her own experience with bipolar illness, Jamison demonstrates how remarkable psychotherapy and other treatments can be when done well.
She argues that not only patients but doctors must be healed. She draws on the example of W.H.R. Rivers, the renowned psychiatrist who treated poet Siegfried Sassoon and other World War I soldiers, and discusses the long history of physical treatments for mental illness, as well as the ancient and modern importance of religion, ritual, and myth in healing the mind. She looks at the vital role of artists and writers, as well as exemplary figures, such as Paul Robeson, who have helped to heal us as a people.
Fires in the Dark is a beautiful meditation on the quest and adventure of healing the mind, on the power of accompaniment, and the necessity for knowledge.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
May 23, 2023 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593740446
- File size: 229450 KB
- Duration: 07:58:01
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from May 15, 2023
Psychologist Jamison (The Unquiet Mind) brings personal and professional insight to this rigorous, deeply felt meditation on psychological healing. Focusing on the relationships between sufferers and those who help them, Jamison begins with the discovery of combat-related trauma during WWI. Diagnosed with “shell shock,” English poet Siegfried Sasson was treated by W.H.R. Rivers, a psychologist, physician, and anthropologist known as the “English Freud,” who combined empathy with clinical brilliance. Healing need not come from psychologist, physician, or priest, Jamison notes, pointing to Black singer-activist Paul Robeson, whose music and art “expressed the suffering he saw in others and that he knew for himself; he lent it meaning.” Other artists crafted memorable, mythopoeic protagonists, such as author Pamela Lyndon Travers’s Mary Poppins. The stories of these characters can convey therapeutic effects, according to Jamison: “Those who enter into the worlds of exemplars and heroes... will be tutored in bravery, in suffering, and in suffering put to purpose.” Citing her own experiences seeking help for depression, Jamison concludes that “healers leave their mark.” It’s an eloquent, wide-ranging, and edifying look at healing relationships of all kinds. -
Beth Hicks's performance is perfectly in sync with this expansive and moving history of treatment for mental suffering by the acclaimed psychotherapist and author of AN UNQUIET MIND. It describes the sparse and often misguided attention given over the years to healing emotional suffering. Jamison's writing is meditative, personal, and richly illustrated with moving stories about treatment pioneers who had a gift for healing people with their hope and willingness to connect. Her own history of bipolar illness and her raw accounts of how victims of war trauma were treated in the past make this audiobook as personal as it is illuminating. Hicks's thoughtful tone fits well with the literary voice of the author. Jamison herself delivers the epilogue. T.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
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