I Never Promised You a Rose Garden


Book Description

The classic novel about a young woman's struggle against madness, now a Holt Paperback, with a new afterword by the author Hailed by The New York Times as "convincing and emotionally gripping" upon its publication in 1964, Joanne Greenberg's semiautobiographical novel stands as a timeless and unforgettable portrayal of mental illness. Enveloped in the dark inner kingdom of her schizophrenia, sixteen-year-old Deborah is haunted by private tormentors that isolate her from the outside world. With the reluctant and fearful consent of her parents, she enters a mental hospital where she will spend the next three years battling to regain her sanity with the help of a gifted psychiatrist. As Deborah struggles toward the possibility of the "normal" life she and her family hope for, the reader is inexorably drawn into her private suffering and deep determination to confront her demons. A modern classic, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden remains every bit as poignant, gripping, and relevant today as when it was first published.




Lisa, Bright and Dark


Book Description

Selected as one of TheNew York Times Book Review’s Best Books of the Year and honored worldwide, Lisa, Bright and Dark was an immediate sensation when it was first published. Detailing how mental illness affects friends and family of the ill, Lisa, Bright and Dark has been in print for more than forty years. Its value has not diminished over time, and readers throughout the world contact the author regularly to discuss their reactions to it. A straight-through read, it is full of romance, excitement, suspense, and finally triumph.




I Never Promised You A Rose Garden


Book Description

"The best book I have read all year. Simply brilliant." – Iain Dale "Oates takes you on an extraordinary journey ... His is a life lesson that serendipity and courage can change things for good." – Laura Kuenssberg, former BBC political editor "Few in political life are as candid about the underpinning of what drives them. A gripping tale of escape and rescue, this is the story of the making of a liberal soul." – Gary Gibbon, political editor, Channel 4 News *** Aged fifteen, armed with a credit card stolen from his father, Jonny Oates ran away from home and boarded a plane to Addis Ababa. His plan? To save the Ethiopian people from the devastating 1985 famine. Discovering that demand for the assistance of unskilled fifteen-year-old English boys was limited, he swiftly learned that you can't change the world by pure force of will – a lesson that would prove invaluable in politics. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden charts Oates's journey from his darkest moments alone in Ethiopia, struggling with his sexuality and mental health, to the heart of Westminster, where, as Nick Clegg's chief of staff, he grapples with the compromises and concessions of coalition. Shot through with a captivating warmth and humour, this heart-stoppingly candid memoir reflects on the challenges of balancing idealism and pragmatism, illustrating how lasting change comes from working together rather than standing alone.




To Redeem One Person is to Redeem the World


Book Description

A fascinating and dramatic account of a controversial figure in twentieth-century psychiatry. In this “dazzling and provocative”* biography, Gail Hornstein brings back to life the maverick psychiatrist Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World tells the extraordinary life story of the German-Jewish refugee analyst who accomplished what Freud and almost everyone else thought impossible: she successfully treated schizophrenics and other seriously disturbed mental patients with intensive psychotherapy, rather than medication, lobotomy, or shock treatment. Written with unprecedented access to a rich archive of clinical materials and newly discovered records and documents from across Europe and the United States, Hornstein’s meticulous and “delightfully lucid”** biography definitively reclaims the life of Fromm-Reichmann. The therapist at the core of Joanne Greenberg’s I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is also the analyst who had an affair with, and later married, her patient Erich Fromm. A pioneer in her field, she made history as the pivotal figure of the unique and legendary mental hospital, Chestnut Lodge. “A lively, well-written account of a charismatic leader in an important period of psychiatry’s history.” —Psychology Today “At a time when little pills are seen as a quick fix for almost everything, this book is well worth taking time to read and contemplate.” —Philadelphia Inquirer *Publishers Weekly **Kirkus Reviews




In This Sign


Book Description

The bestselling modern classic by the author of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden about a deaf couple, their hearing child, and the bond they create through sign language, featuring a new introduction by Sara Nović, author of the New York Times bestseller True Biz, and a new afterword by the author “Astute and wholly authentic . . . This novel isn’t only one of deaf hardship, but also one of bravery and great joy. . . . Over the course of it, I was often as gripped . . . as I am while reading a thriller.” —Sara Nović, from the Introduction A Penguin Classic Abel and Janice meet at a school for the deaf. Sign language brings them together, enabling them to survive and, indeed, to forge a love too powerful to be broken by the world into which they were born. Spanning forty years, from the late 1920s to the early 1960s, In This Sign follows the lives of Abel, Janice, and their hearing daughter, Margaret, as they contend uneasily with the “Outside”—a world designed, often purposely, to be inhospitable to those like them. First published in 1970, only a decade after ASL’s formal recognition as a language and well before the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, In This Sign stands out as a rare, compassionate portrait of the deaf community.




I Never Promised You a Rose Garden


Book Description

Exactly a week after the general election, two men – ‘Call me Dave’ and ‘Call me Nick’ – walked side by side into the rose garden of No. 10 Downing Street to give their first press-conference as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, looking for all the world like men in love. It was a romance in which people wanted to believe. But it was also one that people couldn't help but mistrust. Most unnerving, however, was the sense that they both couldn't quite believe their luck. Cameron: I can't believe it. All those people out there just for us ... Clegg: I know. It's mad, isn't it? I have to keep pinching myself as well. Cameron: Go on say it again ... Clegg: What? Cameron: Call me Prime Minister ... The storms the Dave and Nick partnership would have to face (same sex marriage, plebgate, triple dip recession, riots ...) were then unclear. Now, almost five years on, this up-to-the-minute portrait of Westminster and the forthcoming General Election exposes the realities of the Coalition, while offering an indispensible guide to a half-decade of madness: · * Foreign Policy - The new 'special relationship' - William Hague and Angelina Jolie · * The Economy - Osborne finally cracks it: boom in London; bust everywhere else. · * Immigration - should the entire population of Bulgaria pick strawberries for us? · * The Opposition - how Labour got the wrong Miliband. Includes: * UKIP, PPI, ISIS and other dubious acronyms. · * The countdown to the General Election 2015: five years of planning since the last one. Insightful, painful, very funny, this is a must-read for all of us with a vote, whichever side we thought we were on.




Searching for a Rose Garden


Book Description

Searching for a Rose Garden is an incisive critique of all that is unhelpful about sanestream understandings of and responses to mental distress. Drawing on world-wide survivor activism and scholarship, it explores the toxicity of psychiatry and the co-option and corruption of survivor knowledge and practice by the mainstream. Chapters on survivor research and theory reveal the constant battle to establish and maintain a safe space for experiential knowledge within academia and beyond. Other chapters explore how survivor-developed projects and practices are cultivating a wealth of bright blooms in the most hostile of environments, providing an important vision for the future.




How to Become a Schizophrenic


Book Description

demonstrates the physical, psychological, and social harm resulting from the label schizophrenic and the continuous need to reexamine the underpinnings and attitudes of psychiatry. Booklist Of all the books written about schizophrenianone is more comprehensive, accurate, thorough, and clearer in style and statement than John Modrows classic How to Become a Schizophrenic. Modrow, who is a recovered schizophrenic and is, perhaps, the unrecognized and unappreciated worlds foremost authority on this disorder, has performed a truly invaluable service and has made the major contribution to our understanding of the causes and cures of this pseudodisease. Robert A Baker, Ph.D., former chairman of the Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky; author of They Call It Hypnosis, Hidden Memories: Voices and Visions from Within and Mind Games: Are We Obsessed with Therapy? One of the best things Ive read on the subjectI am struck by the richness of the ideas and the research and the soundness of the conclusions. Peter Breggin, M.D., founder and director of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology; author of Toxic Psychiatry and Talking Back to Prozac a very important contribution to the field. Theodore Lidz, M.D., former chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, Yale University; author of The Origin and Treatment of Schizophrenic Disorders and Schizophrenia and the Family well researched and easily readable (a difficult combination to achieve)! Judi Chamberlin, author of On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System meticulously challenges all the major research that claims that schizophrenia is a biological disorder. Ty C. Colbert, Ph.D., author of Broken Brains or Wounded Hearts: What Causes Mental Illness Before reading the book, I was largely convinced that schizophrenia was primarily a brain disease. Modrow has forced me to take a second look, however, and reconsider the psychological causes of the condition. The Vancouver Sun it is ennobling that despite bad and discouraging treatment he was able to understand himself and others, and share that acquired knowledge in an accurate and helpful way. Bertram P. Karon, PhD., professor of clinical psychology, Michigan State University; author of Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia gives clear proof that theres real hope. Truly a remarkable book! Alan Caruba, Bookviews




True Colours


Book Description

In the global theatre of contemporary warfare, courage and endurance are crucial for overcoming adversity. However, for Caroline Paige, a jet and helicopter navigator in the Royal Air Force, adversity was a common companion both on and off the field of battle. In 1999, Paige became the first ever openly serving transgender officer in the British military. Already a highly respected aviator, she rose against the extraordinary challenges placed before her to remain on the front line in the war on terror, serving a further sixteen years and flying battlefield helicopters in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Detailing the emotional complexities of her transition, Paige reveals the external threats she faced in warzones around the world and the internal conflict she suffered while fighting prejudice at home. The result is a story of secrecy and vulnerability, of fear and courage, of challenge and hope. Criss-crossing battle lines both foreign and domestic, True Colours is the unflinchingly honest and inspirational account of one woman's venerable military career and the monumental struggle she overcame while grappling with gender identity on the quest for acceptance.




The Rose-garden Husband


Book Description

"A sentimental tale of a poor librarian who marries a wealthy invalid and nurses him back to health." Cf. Hanna, A. Mirror for the nation