Ashley L. Peterson (Author of Psych Meds Made Simple)

Ashley Peterson made a comment on their review of The Narrative Therapy Workbook " It sounds like a really interesting treatment modality. "
Oct 09, 2022 03:21PM · see review
Ashley Peterson rated a book really liked it The Narrative Therapy Workbook by Jneé Hill	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The Narrative Therapy Workbook by Jnée Hill, LCSW, explores the narrative therapy approach and offers exercises for you to try out on your own. Narrative therapy involves examining the stories that you’ve been told and that you tell yourself and then ...more
Oct 02, 2022 10:29AM · 2 likes · like · see review
Ashley Peterson rated a book it was amazing Quack Quack: The Threat of Pseudoscience by Joe Schwarcz	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I was all kinds of excited when I was browsing Netgalley and came across Quack Quack: The Threat of Pseudoscience by Dr. Joe Schwarcz, the director at McGill University’s Office for Science and Society. The book aims to convince people of the importa ...more
Sep 21, 2022 08:20AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Quack Quack by Joe Schwarcz. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Quack Quack by Joe Schwarcz <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Ashley Peterson rated a book really liked it Overcoming Stress-Induced Brain Fog: 10 Simple Ways to Find Focus, Improve Memory, and Feel Grounded by Jill P. Weber (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Overcoming Stress-Induced Brain Fog by Jill Weber covers ten strategies to find focus and make your mind work better. It’s aimed at people who are experiencing brain fog due to chronic stress rather than due to illness. The book draws on concepts fro ...more
Aug 26, 2022 08:53AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Overcoming Stress-Induced Brain Fog by Jill P. Weber. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Overcoming Stress-Induced Brain Fog by Jill P. Weber <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Ashley Peterson rated a book it was amazing Are We There Yet? by Elizabeth Jones	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Are We There Yet? is a memoir by Elizabeth Jones about her recovery from depression. I like how she conceptualizes recovery: “Recovery is a lifelong journey, not the destination. Recovery is the wrong word. There’s no going back to my former state. I ...more
Aug 23, 2022 09:13AM · 3 likes · like · see review
Ashley Peterson rated a book it was amazing The Panic Attack Relief Workbook: A 7-Week Plan for Overcoming Fear, Managing Panic, and Finding Calm by Mayra Díaz	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The Panic Attack Relief Workbook by Mayra Diaz lays out a seven-week plan for people to be able to better manage panic. It incorporates cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and exposure therapy. As the title i ...more
Aug 19, 2022 07:00AM · like · see review
Ashley Peterson rated a book liked it Overcoming Trauma and PTSD: A Workbook Integrating Skills from ACT, DBT, and CBT by Sheela Raja (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Overcoming Trauma and PTSD by Sheela Raja is a workbook that incorporates elements of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT). The book begins with an explanation of the eff ...more
Aug 17, 2022 08:28AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Overcoming Trauma and PTSD by Sheela Raja. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Overcoming Trauma and PTSD by Sheela Raja <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Ashley Peterson rated a book liked it You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health by Ken Duckworth	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health by Ken Duckworth, NAMI’s medical director, is the first book released by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. The book includes excerpts from interviews with 130 people who either self ...more
Aug 12, 2022 06:30AM · 5 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of You Are Not Alone by Ken Duckworth. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — You Are Not Alone by Ken Duckworth <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Ashley Peterson rated a book really liked it Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv explores the different ways in which people try to make sense of mental illness, both on an individual and societal level. The book tells the story of six different p ...more
Aug 11, 2022 07:30AM · 14 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Ashley Peterson rated a book really liked it Be Mighty: A Woman’s Guide to Liberation from Anxiety, Worry, and Stress Using Mindfulness and Acceptance by Jill A. Stoddard (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Be Mighty by Jill A. Stoddard draws on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help women free themselves from the anxiety, worry, and stress that are holding them back. The author observes that if you get attached to narratives about being damaged ...more
Aug 10, 2022 08:18AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Be Mighty by Jill A. Stoddard. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Be Mighty by Jill A. Stoddard <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

Ashley Peterson made a comment on their review of The Narrative Therapy Workbook

The Narrative Therapy Workbook by Jneé Hill

" It sounds like a really interesting treatment modality. "

Ashley Peterson rated a book really liked it

The Narrative Therapy Workbook
by Jneé Hill

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The Narrative Therapy Workbook by Jnée Hill, LCSW, explores the narrative therapy approach and offers exercises for you to try out on your own.

Narrative therapy involves examining the stories that you’ve been told and that you tell yourself and then The Narrative Therapy Workbook by Jnée Hill, LCSW, explores the narrative therapy approach and offers exercises for you to try out on your own.

Narrative therapy involves examining the stories that you’ve been told and that you tell yourself and then re-authoring them in a way that highlights your strengths and abilities. It’s based on the idea that we can’t have objective knowledge of the world; rather, everything we understand about it is filtered through our own experiences. It’s an approach that views individuals as experts of their own stories, and the therapist’s role is to ask questions to help people find their own answers rather than leading them towards particular answers. It focuses on strengths rather than dysfunction and pathologizing.

The process involves several states:

-Externalizing the problem: This stage is about seeing the problem as separate from your identity, and recognizing the role that external forces (e.g. socioeconomic factors) play. This may involve personifying, visualizing, and giving a name to the problem story.
-Deconstructing the problem-saturated story: This includes looking at where our stories came from and the meanings and assumptions related to them, and recognizing that they’re often not truly our own and we’ve learned them from others.
-Re-authoring: This involves reframing and reimagining the narrative and choosing new storylines that are a better fit for you.
-Re-membering: This is about deciding who you want as members in the club that is your life, and what role you want them to play.

The book’s first three chapters provide background information about the narrative therapy approach, and then the workbook aspect kicks in and is organized around the four stages in the therapeutic process. There are various prompt questions and there’s space to fill them out. At the end of each chapter, there are concise bullet point summaries of the key takeaways.

I’d heard of narrative therapy before, but this was the first time I’d read about any of the details of it. It sounds like an interesting approach, and I can see it being particularly useful if there are strong other elements to the problems you’re experiencing, whether that’s internalized negative messages from significant people in your life, bullying, or the effects of racism or other -isms. I like the idea of extricating other people’s stories about ourselves and the world from our own stories; I’m rather feistily independent, so I want to be my own author.

In terms of the book, I think it gives a good look at what narrative therapy is like, and it could be helpful to just do on its own or to work through and get a feel for whether it would be a good approach for you to work with a therapist on.

I received a reviewer copy from the publisher through Netgalley. ...more

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Quack Quack: The Threat of Pseudoscience
by Joe Schwarcz

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I was all kinds of excited when I was browsing Netgalley and came across Quack Quack: The Threat of Pseudoscience by Dr. Joe Schwarcz, the director at McGill University’s Office for Science and Society. The book aims to convince people of the importa I was all kinds of excited when I was browsing Netgalley and came across Quack Quack: The Threat of Pseudoscience by Dr. Joe Schwarcz, the director at McGill University’s Office for Science and Society. The book aims to convince people of the importance of separating sense from nonsense, and it’s packed with plenty of examples of the kind of quackery that people are promoting and making lots of money off of.

The book’s main focus is the nonsense of the present, but it begins with a look at some of the quackery of the past. For example, “In the late 1800s, the Battle Creek Sanitarium was unquestionably the place to be for people who needed to be cured of diseases they never had.”

You might recall that drinking one’s own urine was one of the bizarre ideas people came up with for supposedly curing COVID. There’s a chapter devoted to autourine therapy (i.e. drinking one’s own urine), and apparently, there was a World Conference on Urine Therapy.

Then there’s the woman who thought fermented cabbage juice could cure anything and everything, let you regrow missing limbs, and let you live 400 years. Regarding that, Dr. Joe says, “Never before have I heard such concentrated hogwash in such a short time.” He writes that her claims are “full of baloney. Or bunkum. Or balderdash. Take your choice. I have other words too.”

A fair bit of the book is devoted to debunking the weird and wacky claims that people make about water. For example, there’s alkaline water, and Dr. Joe points out that even if it did change the pH of the blood (which it doesn’t), “you would not have to worry about illness because you would be dead.” There’s also the notion of double helix water, as opposed to regular water, which is supposedly weakened by flowing through straight pipes. Then there’s raw water, which can actually harm you depending on what bacteria happen to be contaminating it (I can’t even begin to tell you how not fun it is to have a Giardia infection, quaintly known as “beaver fever“).

The author points out how companies that make these dodgy products will often string together a bunch of words that sound scientific but are actually meaningless. Regarding a device that’s claimed to energize water, he says, “In all my years of wading through swamps of claptrap I don’t think I have come across anything to match the stew of random, garbled, meaningless words cooked up on behalf of Alpha Spin.”

Dr. Joe explains that the most prevalent myth that he’s come across is that “natural” substances are somehow inherently superior to synthetic ones. He points out that chemicals are made out to be a bad thing, but all atoms are chemicals, so the notion of chemical-free doesn’t even make any sense. And if you thought homeopathic remedies were just another kind of herbal product, they’re not, Dr. Joe will explain to you just how wacky the idea behind homeopathy is (trust me, it’s really out there).

The book concludes with a chapter with tips on evaluating information/misinformation, like “nonsensical lingo can sound very scientific”, “nature is not benign”, and “education is not a vaccine against folly.”

This book is hilarious. The things the author is talking about are funny, but it’s the way he talks about them that is absolute gold. I love his word choices, including mountebank, “mind-numbing claptrap”, poppycock, “mindless twaddle”, “woo-isms”, mumbo jumbo, balderdash, malarkey, puffery, and gobbledygook. There were plenty of bits that had me laughing, such as this after being urged not to knock a product before trying it: “Well, I’m knocking. We do not live in a scientific vacuum. We do not concoct ways to trap the tooth fairy.” It was rather difficult to limit myself when it came to the number of quotes I included in this review, since there were just so many great lines.

I loved this book. I think anyone with a science background will find it highly amusing, and I hope that it will convince some people to keep their money to themselves rather than hand it over to hucksters trying to make them think that they need a magic carafe to make double-helix water. Our world is desperately in need of more sense, and hopefully Dr. Joe’s book will help to put a bit of a dent in the shortage thereof. ...more

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Overcoming Stress-Induced Brain Fog by Jill P. Weber

Overcoming Stress-Induced Brain Fog: 10 Simple Ways to Find Focus, Improve Memory, and Feel Grounded
by Jill P. Weber (Goodreads Author)

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Overcoming Stress-Induced Brain Fog by Jill Weber covers ten strategies to find focus and make your mind work better. It’s aimed at people who are experiencing brain fog due to chronic stress rather than due to illness. The book draws on concepts fro ...more

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Are We There Yet?
by Elizabeth Jones

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Are We There Yet? is a memoir by Elizabeth Jones about her recovery from depression. I like how she conceptualizes recovery: “Recovery is a lifelong journey, not the destination. Recovery is the wrong word. There’s no going back to my former state. I Are We There Yet? is a memoir by Elizabeth Jones about her recovery from depression. I like how she conceptualizes recovery: “Recovery is a lifelong journey, not the destination. Recovery is the wrong word. There’s no going back to my former state. If I did, that wouldn’t be progress.”

Liz’s journey with depression has included medication, counselling, processing the trauma she’s been through, and spiritual work. Getting to a place of liking and even loving herself is a major theme in the book, as is accepting the love of God. Some of the experiences of depression that she wrote about sounded very familiar to me, such as going to the store and needing apples but being unable to make a decision about which to buy and then leaving with none.

Liz is a vicar in rural England, and she writes about her decision to seek ordination and going through that process. Her faith plays a prominent role in the book, and she conveys a really important message that depression is not a result of a lack of faith, and managing depression is not solely a spiritual process. I thought this passage was very good at capturing how depression can pull you away from the things that matter:

“I realise that I share in the wonderful and amazing life of the Trinity by virtue of the Holy Spirit dwelling within me! However, a couple of weeks later I was down in the depths of despair once more. I wished I were dead. I wanted everything to go away and leave me alone. No decisions. No writing. No thinking. No nothing – obliterate everything – cease to be. I felt that’s what I should be: dead and gone.”

Liz is someone who clearly finds joy and wonder in her relationship with a loving God, and I think her words will be really inspiring for anyone who feels like their faith or their relationship with God has been impacted by their mental illness. More generally, though, I think the themes of accepting love, coming to love oneself, and working on healing will be inspiring for anyone who has dealt with depression.

There is beautiful artwork and poetry to accompany the book on the author's blog at https://lizjonesblog.home.blog/are-we...

I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review. ...more

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The Panic Attack Relief Workbook by Mayra Díaz

The Panic Attack Relief Workbook: A 7-Week Plan for Overcoming Fear, Managing Panic, and Finding Calm
by Mayra Díaz

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The Panic Attack Relief Workbook by Mayra Diaz lays out a seven-week plan for people to be able to better manage panic. It incorporates cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and exposure therapy. As the title i The Panic Attack Relief Workbook by Mayra Diaz lays out a seven-week plan for people to be able to better manage panic. It incorporates cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and exposure therapy. As the title indicates, it’s a workbook with exercises to fill out.

The book begins with background information about how panic affects the brain and body, as well as different disorders that can involve panic. It also provides background information about different CBT and ACT strategies. The rest of the book is laid out as seven chapters to cover week by week, with a different focus area for each week's exercises.

The first week focuses on understanding how panic impacts your well-being. It included keeping a panic attack log to connect situations, emotions, and sensations, along with exercises to examine and identify panic’s impact on your life, the fears that your mind is treating as threats, and triggers. There are also exercises involving deep breathing, grounding, and progressive muscle relaxation.

Other weekly focus areas include breaking the cycle of negative thoughts, facing your fears, and mindfulness acceptance. There’s a mix of education, self-monitoring, self-reflection, coping tools, exposures (including exposures to feared bodily sensations) and other strategies to address thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. There are also coping statements scattered throughout the book.

One line I quite liked was “You can’t control your emotions, but you can feel capable of managing them.”

A wording choice that struck me as a bit odd was when the author encouraged readers to teach others about what they’ve learned, while at the same time being careful to avoid playing armchair therapist. She wrote, “You have learned a lot about panic, but you are not a mental health expert.” It’s a very minor thing and I know what she was going for was “you are not a mental health professional”, but I’m kind of feisty, and telling people living with mental illnesses that they’re not experts in their conditions sparks a bit of that feistiness.

I thought the author did a really good job of providing clear, concise explanations, which allowed a lot of useful stuff to be packed into a book that’s relatively short and very easy to read. It’s also very aesthetically appealing. I liked the short sections and point-form key takeaways at the end of each chapter. The tone was supportive and encouraging but not preachy, which I also liked. Overall, I thought it was very well done.

I received a reviewer copy from the publisher through Netgalley. ...more

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Overcoming Trauma and PTSD by Sheela Raja

Overcoming Trauma and PTSD: A Workbook Integrating Skills from ACT, DBT, and CBT
by Sheela Raja (Goodreads Author)

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Overcoming Trauma and PTSD by Sheela Raja is a workbook that incorporates elements of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT).

The book begins with an explanation of the eff Overcoming Trauma and PTSD by Sheela Raja is a workbook that incorporates elements of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT).

The book begins with an explanation of the effects of trauma, including how trauma memories, which are emotionally charged and situationally accessible, are different from verbally accessible memories. It then moves on to fundamentals of ACT, CBT, and DBT, and there are recommendations of specific strategies to try for various symptoms.

There’s a chapter on managing anxiety, and the author presents both the CBT approach of challenging difficult thoughts and the ACT approach of accepting them. She explains that one may work better than the other in different contexts, so it’s good to have both in your toolbox. I definitely prefer that kind of pragmatic approach to the more rigid must-challenge-thoughts approach that some CBT-oriented books take.

There’s also a chapter that addresses avoidance and exposure, and the author suggests that writing can be a useful part of systematic desensitization. The chapter on managing re-experiencing symptoms covers topics like mindfulness, grounding, and imagery rehearsal for nightmares (which involves practicing an alternate ending). The book also provides tips on when to seek help from a therapist and how to find one.

This is a short book—the epub version I got from the library was 105 pages. It’s set up as a workbook with clearly laid out worksheets, and while the exercises themselves would take time to work through, the written content is a quick and easy read. I think this book is most likely to be helpful for people who’ve experienced trauma but don’t have full-blown PTSD, or for people who want to try to manage on their own before seeking therapy and are looking for some basic guidance to get started. It’s probably not going to be all that helpful for people with complex trauma or severe PTSD, and that’s not really the intended audience anyway. I think it makes a reasonably good introductory book, and I liked the blending of strategies from ACT, CBT, and DBT. ...more

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You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health
by Ken Duckworth

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You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health by Ken Duckworth, NAMI’s medical director, is the first book released by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. The book includes excerpts from interviews with 130 people who either self You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health by Ken Duckworth, NAMI’s medical director, is the first book released by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. The book includes excerpts from interviews with 130 people who either self-identify as having a mental illness or have a loved one who does, and the author writes, “Mental illness and recovery are human experiences, so I consider experience-based evidence an authoritative source for this book.”

The book opens with the author talking about his history with NAMI and his family’s experience with his father’s bipolar illness. Throughout the book, he comes across as talking with readers on the same level rather than being an expert talking at readers.

The book is divided into four parts. The first part looks at mental health conditions and mental health care, the second part focuses on people’s experiences with their recovery journeys, the third part focuses on family members, and the final part is devoted to traditional experts answering commonly asked questions.

The author acknowledges the flaws with the DSM diagnostic system, and he’s also realistic about the problems with the mental health care system, or lack thereof: “The mental health ‘system’ throughout the United States is chaotic and full of gaps. It has long been broken and fragmented, and if you try to wait for the system to be less confusing and frustrating, you will be waiting a very long time.” The book talks about medical model and recovery model strategies (focusing on symptoms and living a good life, respectively), and the author encourages a both/and rather than an either/or approach.

Topics covered in the book included peer support, cultural issues, becoming an advocate, and legal issues around things like involuntary treatment, privacy, and police and criminal justice system involvement. The final section included an FAQ chapter with various experts answering questions, as well as a chapter with clinicians and researchers addressing questions about care for depression, OCD, borderline personality disorder, trauma, co-occurring disorders, bipolar disorder, and psychosis. It felt like a lot of disparate things to cram into two chapters.

There was a chapter on making meaning of suicide loss, and there were a couple of comments I found quite interesting. An interviewee who had lost a brother to suicide said “The last engagement he had was with another person who was talking to a classmate about how to divide homework problems, and I found him twenty minutes later. If you’re struggling with suicidal ideation, you’re not talking about homework problems.” The author, whose brother died by suicide, wrote “My brother ordered a computer monitor the day he died, and it arrived the day of his funeral. People who are contemplating suicide don’t do that.” Except they do; if the action hasn’t happened yet, there is some degree of ambivalence, and tasks of living continue in that space of ambivalence.

While the goal was to be comprehensive, I found the book kind of unfocused, and I felt like that detracted from the overall usefulness. I’m all for sharing people’s stories, but the way excerpts from the interviews were pulled together (often a paragraph or two at a time) created a bit of a hodgepodge that made it hard to feel connected to the individuals. While I can see the potential value of interviewing 130 people and interspersing bits of their comments throughout the book, I think it does make it harder for readers to feel like they’re really getting a sense of who these people are.

As you might expect from a NAMI book, there is a NAMI promotional element. Although it wasn’t unexpected, I did think it was a little overdone. Another element that wasn’t unexpected was optimism about recovery and stories of people doing really well. There was plenty of acknowledgement that things have been hard in the past tense, but there wasn’t a lot of present tense struggling conveyed. As a present-tense-struggler myself, I found it a bit unbalanced, but I think probably a lot of the people who end up reading this book will like the recovery emphasis.

At over 400 pages, this book is a serious commitment. The length and the lack of focus and structure don't make a great combination; it tends to promote skimming, which takes away from the power of some of the interviewees’ contributions.

I can see this book being useful for family members who are looking to learn as much as they can about what this whole mental illness thing is about, and that’s probably the main target audience that NAMI is aiming for. It’s probably going to be less useful for people who’ve been around the block a few times dealing with their own illness.

I received a reviewer copy from the publisher through Netgalley. ...more

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Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
by Rachel Aviv

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Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv explores the different ways in which people try to make sense of mental illness, both on an individual and societal level. The book tells the story of six different p Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv explores the different ways in which people try to make sense of mental illness, both on an individual and societal level. The book tells the story of six different people who experienced mental illness, including the sociocultural factors that shaped those experiences. One of these stories is of the author's own experience of being hospitalized at age six for anorexia nervosa.

The author is a writer for The New Yorker, and her journalistic background is very apparent in the stories she tells. Of the other five individuals whose stories were told in the book, two of them were still alive and directly interviewed by the author. One of these five was someone who had been a co-patient of the author’s during her childhood hospitalization.

The book opens with the author’s own story, then moves on to Ray Osheroff, who was a notable figure in the conflict between a psychoanalytical approach to psychiatry and an evidence-based approach. He had a lengthy stay for severe depression at an institution called Chestnut Lodge, where the treatment team insisted that psychoanalytic therapy was the only way he could get better. Although he was only getting worse, they refused to put him on medication. He later sued Chestnut Lodge for malpractice for not using evidence-based treatment, and the book explores the debate that this lawsuit sparked within the field of psychiatry.

Next up is Bapu, a deeply spiritual Indian woman who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In telling her story, the author explores issues around spirituality and psychosis, culture, and the ways families respond to mental illness.

The story of Naomi Gaines, a Black woman who killed one of her children while psychotic, addresses how racism impacts how mental illness is framed and treated and how it impacts access to care. It also looks at the effects of deinstitutionalization, the large numbers of mentally ill people who end up in the criminal justice system, and the limitations of the M'Naghten Rule, which is the legal test that's commonly used in the US to establish an insanity defense. In Naomi's case, doctors didn't feel that she met the M'Naghten standard, and her public defender didn't think a jury would accept an insanity defense. The book also looks at the poor care that people with mental illness receive in prison. In Naomi's case, while in prison for second-degree murder, her antipsychotic was stopped due to cost. Unsurprisingly, her mental health deteriorated, and she was put in segregation for two months.

Next was the story of Laura Delano, a woman who'd been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and later borderline personality disorder. She took 19 different medications over the course of 14 years. The author observes, “While Black women tend to be undermedicated for depression, white women, especially ambitious ones, are often overmedicated, in order to ‘have it all’: a family and a thriving career.”

Laura ended up going off of medication because of emotional and sexual numbness, and she had significant difficulties with withdrawal, which led to her getting involved in online communities of others who'd also struggled with psychiatric medication withdrawal. The book explores the ways that people relate to the medications they are taking or have stopped taking and how this can shape identity and the stories people construct about their illnesses. The author also contrasts her own experience with Laura’s—while Laura’s doctors had pushed meds, the author had been taught to see her illness as “a kind of stress reaction… In a sense, Laura and I were mirrors on which different faces of psychiatry had been reflected.”

The author also shares her own experiences taking the antidepressant Lexapro as an adult. It sounds like it was prescribed not because of a psychiatric diagnosis, but rather to help with psychological rigidity around feelings of inadequacy. It was initially intended to be for short-term use, but she felt better on it and worse when she tried to come off of it. On a low dose, the author writes, “I was not depressed, but I was less social, flexible, and spontaneous. It seemed I had reached my baseline personality.” She ended up deciding to go back up to the full dose, and she's remained on the Lexapro for over a decade. She adds, “I also realize that I’ve endowed my pill of choice with mystical capacities—it contains the things I’m not but wish I was—and merely the idea of swallowing such a thing has healing power."

It was interesting to examine my own reactions to this. I’m very pro-medication as an option for treating mental illness, but I must admit, I judged the psychiatrist who started her on the Lexapro. Why? In part, it’s because I’m into evidence-based medicine, and prescribing medication for something it’s not indicated for seems like poor practice, but there’s also a more personal element to the reaction. I think that’s at least partly because I take meds to try to get back some of the self that my illness obscures, and taking meds to be a different person from the self feels… backward, maybe? Or maybe I’m just envious of the idea of taking meds as a self-enhancer rather than in an attempt to stay alive and maintain some degree of functioning.

The book has a lot of detail, drawing on interviews with many people associated with each story. It’s impressive in terms of journalistic quality, although my personal preference would have been to leave out some of the details that seemed less relevant. Then again, that’s at least partly because I wasn’t feeling well when I read it. I liked the author’s approach of looking at the bigger picture factors that came into play in each individual’s story and how this shaped the way these individuals and those around them understood the illness. Both the depth of investigation and the big-picture view make this a unique and fascinating book.

I received a reviewer copy from the publisher through Netgalley. ...more

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Be Mighty: A Woman’s Guide to Liberation from Anxiety, Worry, and Stress Using Mindfulness and Acceptance
by Jill A. Stoddard (Goodreads Author)

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Be Mighty by Jill A. Stoddard draws on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help women free themselves from the anxiety, worry, and stress that are holding them back.

The author observes that if you get attached to narratives about being damaged Be Mighty by Jill A. Stoddard draws on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help women free themselves from the anxiety, worry, and stress that are holding them back.

The author observes that if you get attached to narratives about being damaged or broken, you’re “probably a frequent flier at the popular hot spot known as the Comfort Zone.” She argues that anxiety, worry, and stress aren’t actually the problem; it’s the way that we react to them that leads to suffering. In particular, attempts at avoidance and resistance get us in trouble.

The book describes an anxiety triumvirate consisting of intolerance of uncertainty, lack of perceived control, and an overinflated sense of responsibility for things happening around us. “When you are troubled by the anxiety triumvirate, you will do whatever it takes to get answers and fix the problem, all while staying in charge.” That may include excessive internet searching, reassurance-seeking, or excessive checking. While those strategies may make us feel better in the short-term (“it works, or we wouldn’t do it”), they actually provide more fuel for the anxiety triumvirate.

I thought this observation was particularly insightful: “We think we should be able to solve “problems” inside our bodies (uncomfortable thoughts, emotions, sensations, and urges) because our experience solving problems outside our bodies tells us it’s possible.” However, attempting to problem-solve anxiety leads to psychological inflexibility, which is the exact opposite of what ACT is aiming for.

In the chapter on willingness, the author points out that when you’re not willing to experience anxiety, you start feeling anxious about anxiety, so hello anxiety. She likened willingness to water, as it simply flows around things that get in its way without stopping or trying to get rid of them.

I quite liked this bit on avoidance and the comfort zone:

“Her Majesty, Avoidance, is usually ruling the queendom, manipulating you with her tempting promises of relief while holding you hostage in the Tiny Tower of the Comfort Zone. So when that childish rebel shows up kicking and screaming (“But I don’t wanna feel the feelings!”), remind her of the might of mindfulness, hand her the weapon of willingness, and send her off to dethrone that evil Avoidance queen.”

The book also talks about changing your “buts” to “ands”, the role of values, committed actions that are based on those values, and cognitive defusion (separating ourselves from our thoughts). It describes the combination of core beliefs and safety behaviours as a suit of armour that we wear to try to shield ourselves from pain, but it restricts our ability to live our lives.

ACT in general is anti-affirmations, framing it as just another way of over-attaching ourselves to stories. The author jumps on board the anti-positivity train, writing, “Affirmations, and positive self-talk in general, are often just fusion and avoidance in disguise.”

While women are the identified audience of the book and there is some attention given to societal pressures that women face, feminist issues aren’t the primary focus, and I think the book would still be quite relevant to male readers. The book is divided into short sections, making it really easy to read. It’s fairly short, and the author does a good job of succinctly explaining key ACT concepts without going into too much detail. The tone is casual and light-hearted, and I learned a new expression – “banana pants.” I think this book would be a really good fit for anyone looking for a therapy-based book that’s fun and doesn’t feel too therapy-ish.

This review first appeared on https://mentalhealthathome.org/2022/0... ...more

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