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Gracefully Insane

2009-07-21 Psychology
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Release : 2009-07-21
Genre : Psychology
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 367/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Gracefully Insane by : Alex Beam

Download or read book Gracefully Insane written by Alex Beam. This book was released on 2009-07-21. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Its landscaped ground, chosen by Frederick Law Olmsted and dotted with Tudor mansions, could belong to a New England prep school. There are no fences, no guards, no locked gates. But McLean Hospital is a mental institution-one of the most famous, most elite, and once most luxurious in America. McLean "alumni" include Olmsted himself, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, James Taylor and Ray Charles, as well as (more secretly) other notables from among the rich and famous. In its "golden age," McLean provided as genteel an environment for the treatment of mental illness as one could imagine. But the golden age is over, and a downsized, downscale McLean-despite its affiliation with Harvard University-is struggling to stay afloat. Gracefully Insane, by Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam, is a fascinating and emotional biography of McLean Hospital from its founding in 1817 through today. It is filled with stories about patients and doctors: the Ralph Waldo Emerson prot'g' whose brilliance disappeared along with his madness; Anne Sexton's poetry seminar, and many more. The story of McLean is also the story of the hopes and failures of psychology and psychotherapy; of the evolution of attitudes about mental illness, of approaches to treatment, and of the economic pressures that are making McLean-and other institutions like it-relics of a bygone age. This is a compelling and often oddly poignant reading for fans of books like Plath's The Bell Jar and Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted (both inspired by their author's stays at McLean) and for anyone interested in the history of medicine or psychotherapy, or the social history of New England.

An Insight Into an Insane Asylum

1882 Psychiatric hospitals
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Release : 1882
Genre : Psychiatric hospitals
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : /5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis An Insight Into an Insane Asylum by : Joseph Camp

Download or read book An Insight Into an Insane Asylum written by Joseph Camp. This book was released on 1882. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experiences in the Insane Hospital of Alabama.

Twelve Patients

2012-07-10 Biography & Autobiography
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Release : 2012-07-10
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 894/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Twelve Patients by : Eric Manheimer

Download or read book Twelve Patients written by Eric Manheimer. This book was released on 2012-07-10. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiration for the NBC drama New Amsterdam and in the spirit of Oliver Sacks, this intensely involving memoir from a former medical director of a major NYC hospital looks poignantly at patients' lives and reveals the author's own battle with cancer. Using the plights of twelve very different patients--from dignitaries at the nearby UN, to supermax prisoners at Riker's Island, to illegal immigrants, and Wall Street tycoons--Dr. Eric Manheimer "offers far more than remarkable medical dramas: he blends each patient's personal experiences with their social implications" (Publishers Weekly). Manheimer was not only the medical director of the country's oldest public hospital for over 13 years, but he was also a patient. As the book unfolds, the narrator is diagnosed with cancer, and he is forced to wrestle with the end of his own life even as he struggles to save the lives of others.

Annie's Ghosts

2009-05-05 Psychology
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Release : 2009-05-05
Genre : Psychology
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 426/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Annie's Ghosts by : Steve Luxenberg

Download or read book Annie's Ghosts written by Steve Luxenberg. This book was released on 2009-05-05. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beth Luxenberg was an only child. Or so everyone thought. Six months after Beth's death, her secret emerged. It had a name: Annie. Praise for Annie's Ghosts "Annie's Ghosts is one of the most remarkable books I have ever read . . . From mental institutions to the Holocaust, from mothers and fathers to children and childhood, with its mysteries, sadness, and joy--this book is one emotional ride."--Bob Woodward, author of The War Within and State of Denial "Steve Luxenberg sleuths his family's hidden history with the skills of an investigative reporter, the instincts of a mystery writer, and the sympathy of a loving son. His rediscovery of one lost woman illuminates the shocking fate of thousands of Americans who disappeared just a generation ago."--Tony Horwitz, author of A Voyage Long and Strange and Confederates in the Attic "I started reading within minutes of picking up this book, and was instantly mesmerized. It's a riveting detective story, a moving family saga, an enlightening if heartbreaking chapter in the history of America's treatment of people born with what we now call special needs." -- Deborah Tannen, author of You Just Don't Understand and You're Wearing That "This is a memoir that pushes the journalistic envelope . . . Luxenberg has written a fascinating personal story as well as a report on our communal response to the mentally ill." -- Helen Epstein, author of Where She Came From and Children of the Holocaust "A wise, affecting new memoir of family secrets and posthumous absolution." -- The Washington Post "Annie's Ghosts will resonate for many, whether the chords have to do with family secrets, the Depression, memories of a thriving Detroit, the Holocaust's horrors, or the immigrant experience." -- The Detroit Free Press

A Great Idea at the Time

2010-09 History
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Release : 2010-09
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 575/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis A Great Idea at the Time by : Alex Beam

Download or read book A Great Idea at the Time written by Alex Beam. This book was released on 2010-09. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today the classics of the western canon, written by the proverbial ''dead white men,'' are cannon fodder in the culture wars. But in the 1950s and 1960s, they were a pop culture phenomenon. The Great Books of Western Civilization, fifty-four volumes chosen by intellectuals at the University of Chicago, began as an educational movement, and evolved into a successful marketing idea. Why did a million American households buy books by Hippocrates and Nicomachus from door-to-door salesmen? And how and why did the great books fall out of fashion? In A Great Idea at the Time Alex Beam explores the Great Books mania, in an entertaining and strangely poignant portrait of American popular culture on the threshold of the television age. Populated with memorable characters, A Great Idea at the Time will leave readers asking themselves: Have I read Lucretius's De Rerum Natura lately? If not, why not?

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