{"id":12883,"date":"2022-09-12T11:51:04","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T09:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.foreo.com\/mysa\/?p=12883"},"modified":"2022-09-12T11:51:04","modified_gmt":"2022-09-12T09:51:04","slug":"strangers-to-ourselves-by-rachel-aviv-understanding-mental-disorders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.foreo.com\/mysa\/strangers-to-ourselves-by-rachel-aviv-understanding-mental-disorders\/","title":{"rendered":"“Strangers to Ourselves” by Rachel Aviv: How to Deeply Understand Yourself?"},"content":{"rendered":"
The acclaimed, award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv offers a groundbreaking exploration of mental illness and the mind, and illuminates the startling connections between diagnosis and identity. Namely, she probes her own and others\u2019 lives to suggest how the stories we are told by the medical profession about our struggles can both help and harm<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In\u00a0“Strangers to Ourselves“<\/em>, 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 Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are<\/strong>. Incorporating deeply reported portraits of several people, including herself, Aviv\u2019s debut considers the fundamental ways in which we do \u2014 and don\u2019t \u2014 understand mental disorders.<\/p>\n Namely, in her book she follows an Indian woman, celebrated as a saint, who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children\u2019s 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\u2019t know who she is without them.<\/p>\n We learn about these people one by one, with a chapter for each, so that Aviv can recount their lives in detail and therefore in full. She interviews doctors, friends and survivors; she reads her subjects\u2019 journals in order to get a grasp on how they explained themselves to themselve<\/strong>s. In this way, she uncovers the hidden stories that shape our understanding of mental illness.<\/p>\n The result is a nuanced and compassionate view of mental disorders, which challenges the simplified stories we often tell about them. Aviv\u2019s book is essential reading for anyone who has ever struggled with their mental health or been close to someone who has. Challenging the way we understand and talk about illness, her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind<\/strong>.<\/p>\nEye-opening book<\/h2>\n
How do you explain yourself?<\/h2>\n