Strangers to ourselves : unsettled minds and the stories that make us

Summary: "Strangers to Ourselves poses fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and stress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman, celebrated as a saint, who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children's 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't know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv's gripping exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life now runs parallel--until it no longer does. Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives--and our identities, too."