Rating: 
Summary: Exellent, informative real life accounting of Manic depres.
Review: I read this book in less than 24hrs it kept my interest through out. My wife suffers from this illness and for once in my life I now understand what she has and is going through. The inner thoughts that Kay reveiled to me will help me help my wife through the everyday dealings of life. And also help me with understanding the good mania's and bad mania's along with the depressions. It has given me hope that through love,meds,and Psychiatry there will a future of stability. Thanks Kay Redfield Jamison!
Rating: 
Summary: A good read, but lacking in specifics
Review: This book was nice to read, but I felt it was a diary made public. It would have been nice to read about this disorder in greater scientific detail.
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Summary: A rare peek at a usually private matter
Review: This book was especially compelling in its honesty in revealing what is usually kept carefully under raps. For those interested in what the inside of other peoples' therapy sessions looks like, try a collection called Inside Therapy: Illujinating Writings about Therapists, Patients, and Psychotherapy.
Rating:
Summary: A powerful and informative book on the misunderstood illness
Review: Being a mother of a daughter who is manic-depressive it was comforting to hear those same words and 'see' those same actions that I hear and see on a daily basis. We are not alone! My daughter would say while reading passages from Unquiet Mind - "that's me" or "I feel like I could have written the book". This illness is so misunderstood by the majority of the public yet after the last few years struggling to find help for my daughter, I tend to think there are many more people suffering from this illness than is realized. Education is what's so extremely important as with all mental illness's. By her book, Ms Jamison allows others as herself to feel less alone, and those of us who are parents to continue to persist in the search for answers.
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Summary: A book I'll be recommending to bipolars, friends & families.
Review: I would like to recommend an excellent book for those living with bipolar illness as well as for their family and friends. I had thought until I read this book that Patty Duke Austin's "BRILLIANT MADNESS" was the best book to recommend, and it still is a good one, but "An Unquiet Mind" is such a good read I was unable to put it down and my wife to follow. I've been diagnosed as bipolar Type I since 1994 and not until I read this book did I feel someone had a grasp of what it is like to live with this illness. Having been a neuropsychiatric technician for 14 years, I knew what the illness looked like from the outside but when it hit me it wasn't until I came out of the tailspin on lithium and now depakote (divalproex sodium) that life is on an even keel. It took the loss of an 18 year marriage, my career in the service, near financial ruin, and the love and care of friends and family, to get me through the worst of it. My hat is off to the clinicians, support groups, and medications that got me here to 1998 to celebrate my 45th birthday. Thank God the whole team was there when I needed them most, yet fought with them the hardest, to avoid whatever they had to offer. This book is such a parallel to my experiences that I heartily recommend it to those coping, or not coping, with the illness of manic depression.
Rating: 
Summary: A memoir to be read with a grain of salt
Review: Kay Redfield Jamison did a good job when she wrote parts of the textbook MANIC-DEPRESSIVE ILLNESS and the book TOUCHED WITH FIRE. However, when trying to describe her own illness, she fell short of compelling writing. She was not famous; why did she think anyone would have wanted to read her boastful memoir? But, that aside, she should have written more about how her illness made her perceive the world. She couldn't have existed in a vacuum; sooner or later her moods would have made others angry or exasperated with her. Also, she hints at some environmental stressors, problems at home, alcoholism in the family, and adjustment problems when moving to a new area, but does not elaborate on how these could have helped to trigger or to exacerbate her illness. Finally, I get the impression that Jamison is trying to appear glamourous and upper-class. Perhaps her military background gives her a sense of inferiority which has nothing to do with her depression; the military has lower-class origins. She should know that things such as the DAR have no credibility in today's meritocracy; indeed, a lot of "old trash" could qualify for membership. A true aristocrat does not call an evening dress an "evening gown", nor call undue attention to job titles. An aristocrat does not drop names. For that matter, neither does a true meritocrat. Read this memoir if you must, but if you want some more realistic ideas of successful people who have battled manic-depression, then get Jamison's TOUCHED WITH FIRE, and start reading works by and about some of the writers and composers therein.
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Summary: Hauntingly Accurate
Review: I've suffered from manic depression for ten years and this book is a hauntingly accurate description of what it really feels like to suffer from the disorder, unlike any others I've read. Ms. Jamison's accomplishments despite her affliction provide hope for all fellow sufferers.
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Summary: Interesting content, but not well-written.
Review: As someone who suffers from depression, I found solace in many of the passages of this book. It was comforting to read about Ms. Redfield's experiences and feel them resonate so deeply within me. However, her narrative is very repetitive and at times hard to follow. I also believe it is a bit dramatic. She often ends chapters with sentences like, "I could not have known then that the worst was yet to come," but then never quite delivers. Also, she over-uses many words, especially the word "mercurial" in reference to her moods. (I was about to throw the book across the room if I saw that word one more time!) Overall, it is a good read if you want to understand what it's like to live with a mental illness, but the critical reader will most likely be frustrated by the repetition, dramaticism, and lack of a varied vocabulary.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent but thorough, a real life story.
Review: An excellent book that should be read by those who suffer, family members, and even the professional therapist or pdoc who wants a better understanding of depression. Written by a PhD who herself doesn't recognize that she herself suffers from depression until later. This gives it validity among the professional but it is easy to read and understand for the lay person. I have bought several copies and given them away as gifts - to include one to my therapist!
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Summary: I'm a college student and this was the best book that i own
Review: This was a extra creit exsinment for class. as soon that i started to read i could not put it down. i changed my major to pyhcolgey. it was by far the best book that i've read.
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