Dante's Cure: A Journey Out of Madness

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Summary: Valued contribution to psychiatric medicine
Review: Dante's Cure: A Journey Out Of Madness by Daniel Dorman (Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine University of California at Los Angeles) traces the history of Catherine, a woman suffering from severe schizophrenia in the 1970s and was admitting at a UCLA hospital as an adolescent anorexic who was suicidal and heard murderous voices in her head. Dr. Dorman describe's Catherine's condition, her background, and moments of interpretative breakthroughs, and his work with her in resistance to collegial pressures to medicate Catherine. Dr. Dorman set up in private practice and continued his sessions with Catherine. Gradually she was able to begin a recovery, live in an apartment, attend college, and eventually qualified as a psychiatric nurse. Of special interest is Dr. Dorman's epilogue setting out his rationale in opposition to the dominant psychiatric view of schizophrenia as a "brain disorder" requiring medication. He persuasively advocates a humanist, patient-doctor collaborationist approach as illustrated by his years of work with Catherine. Dante's Cure is a welcome and valued contribution to psychiatric medicine and a recommended addition to personal, professional, and Mental Health Studies library collections.


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Summary: A Book of True Inspiration
Review: I highly recommend this book. Catherine Penney's inspirational story offers hope to all who suffer from so-called mental illness. Don't believer the drug company propaganda that people who struggle with mental problems need drugs for life.

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Summary: absolutely preposterous!
Review: I wonder if schizophrenia is a correct diagnosis for this woman, it sounds more like a personality disorder. Schizophrenia is a REAL brain dysfunction that up to now, doesn't have a "cure" and medications help some symptoms but the illness doesn't go away. It is irresponsible of a physician to attribute his sessions "curative" powers without any clear methodology. Pharmacotherapy is not about drug companies, is about quality of life, I wonder who can wait 20 years and see someone 6 days a week to "improve". Again I doubt this person had schizophrenia.

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Summary: Real non-drug cure
Review: This book is an awe-inspiring account of a psychiatrist's refusal to do anything less than cure his patient. He did this without the use of drugs, in itself an amazing thing. It was not an easy road to a drugged recovery but a thorough, life-affirming process which allows his patient to live life as it is meant to be lived.

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Summary: Dangerous and self-deluded bunk
Review: This book is dangerous and self-deluded bunk.

Dr. Dorman tells the story of a young woman patient he began treating when he was a psychiatric resident at UCLA in the 1970's. He was under thirty and she was nineteen. Apparently, after seven years, the patient, Catherine Penney, was cured by Dr. Dorman.

Dr. Dorman is still so in the thrall of his "curing" of this woman, that now some twenty-five years later he has written what amounts to a romance novel about this treatment. He has supposedly practiced psychiatry for 30 years. What has happened since? Has he "cured" anyone else? Perhaps he's had some failures? The rest of his practice is a blank slate.

It may be admirable to attempt to treat schizophrenia without "drugs," but perhaps it is only Dr. Dorman who can do this. Is this really a viable treatment paradigm? And based on this one case, Dr. Dorman seems to extrapolate that "chemical imbalances" relating to schizophrenia don't exist. Dr. Dorman comes across as downright dangerous in his rigidity and self-inflation, and seems to have skipped all his classes in medical school relating to scientific methodology.

In a recent publicity interview found online, Dr. Dorman claims that Catherine Penney is permanently cured, although, short of having God-like foresight, how he can make such a statement is mind-boggling. But Dr. Dorman does say that "he can't cure everyone." Really? Now there's humility for you.



Rating:
Summary: A Brilliant Book for a wonderful writer
Review: THis is a brilliant book. Dr. Daniel Dorman has done something few doctors have the patience to do or care. He cured someone over 7 years with severe schizophinia without any drugs - just a belief in himself and her recovery.
The last chapter is worth the price of the book. He is a compassionate, caring man who believes minds are not broken.
He his a real healer.