PSYC 221 Abnormal Psychology (Whyte): Mental Illness

True account. A gripping memoir and medical suspense story about a young New York Post reporter's struggle with a rare and terrifying disease, opening a new window into the fascinating world of brain science. One day in 2009, twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a strange hospital room, strapped to her bed, under guard, and unable to move or speak. A wristband marked her as a "flight risk," and her medical records--chronicling a month-long hospital stay of which she had no memory at all--showed hallucinations, violence, and dangerous instability.

True account. Christine describes her struggle with early onset psychosis. The terrible symptoms of psychosis, including hallucinations and delusions, began when Christine was twelve years old. In her personal account of life lived with anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder, Christine ensures that the reader will fully grasp the true meaning of mental illness and its impact on the emerging sense of self of a teenager or young adult.

True account. Takes you deep into the mind of the author who suffers from several severe mental illnesses. The author suffers from clinical depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and borderline personality disorder. She struggles with suicidal thoughts and attempts, self-mutilating behaviors, mania, paranoia, anxiety, and psychosis with intense hallucinations of all five of her senses, and multiple delusion, including the belief that she is the "second-coming of Christ".

To many people, hallucinations imply madness, but in fact they are a common part of the human experience. These sensory distortions range from the shimmering zigzags of a visual migraine to powerful visions brought on by fever, injuries, drugs, sensory deprivation, exhaustion, or even grief. Hallucinations doubtless lie behind many mythological traditions, literary inventions, and religious epiphanies. Drawing on his own experiences, a wealth of clinical cases from among his patients, and famous historical examples ranging from Dostoevsky to Lewis Carroll, the legendary neurologist Oliver Sacks investigates the mystery of these sensory deceptions: what they say about the working of our brains, how they have influenced our folklore and culture, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all.