A book about mental illness. Thank you, Netgalley, for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A remarkable book. So glad to have read it. Perfect blend between lyricism and reportage. I hope to be able to teach it in the Spring.

Loved how raw and visceral this was. Amazing. It was so touching and emotional. I didn’t think it would be as good as it is.

Rachel Aviv is a writer for the New Yorker who begins by telling of her own experience as the youngest individual diagnosed with anorexia. It’s an insightful look at mental illness through empathetic reporting of various individuals experiences.

As someone in the mental health field it is always interesting to read books like this for several reasons. Sometimes it is to see different perspectives from my own and sometimes it is to learn more to help those I work with. This book offered some of both. It was a great read to as we continue to explore and define mental health.

Mental illness is something that so many people struggle with. The struggle begins at different times for everyone but in the end, we as a society need to take responsibility for how we structure the support systems to meet the demands. The stories are needed so that we can learn from them and become more empathetic and supportive of those that need them. Ms. Aviv shows the reader that the struggle is at all levels of society and throughout the world. I learned so much from this book and learned that kindness and sincerity go a long way forward.

Strangers to Ourselves is a striking articulation of mental illness—as in, the best book I've ever read on the topic. I found each story to be both intriguing and authentic, which made for a thoughtful page-turner that I deeply related to.

I tried reading this after seeing it on a lot of recommended books coming out, and could not get into it.

What an interesting study about mental illness, especially wrenching as it is told from the author’s personal experience.

I am very interested in the field of psychology, so when Netgalley offered me the opportunity to read Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv, I jumped on the chance.  The book was described as a “groundbreaking exploration of mental illness and the mind.”  According to the description, Rachel Aviv was going to explain how mental disorders can affect who we are in society and she would do this by inviting us into the lives of a number of individuals diagnosed with mental disorders.  I quickly downloaded the book…and then it sat.  Life was such that I didn’t get the chance to read Rachel Aviv’s book until now, but I can’t wait to tell our readers about the experience.

Rachel Aviv is not a psychiatrist or psychologist.  She’s a staff writer for The New Yorker with unique insight into the world of mental disorders – she was diagnosed with one at a young age.   Thus, he opens the book with a discussion of her childhood diagnosis of anorexia after the divorce of her parents and their ongoing custody battle.  Her stay in the hospital was supposed to help her overcome anorexia, but Rachel tells us something that we may not realize – staying with others who have the same or similar diagnosis can lead to an intensity in your own diagnosis.  She would learn tricks of the trade, so to speak, from other patients who had been dealing with the diagnosis much longer than she had, how to avoid meals, how to eat large meals and get rid of them shortly afterwards, etc.  While her parents were blaming each other for her anorexia, Rachel was learning how to be a better anorexic from her hospital mates.  After six weeks, she was released from the hospital and soon afterwards she was no longer exhibiting symptoms of anorexia.  Could the symptoms have been exacerbated by her stay with other anorexics or was this something Rachel needed to work out herself?

The other stores Rachel has included in her book are just as thought-provoking.  Particularly of interest are the chapters about Bapu and Naomi.  Through her research of these individuals’ journals, interviews with people who knew them, and more, Rachel paints us a picture of how a lack of culturally educated psychology harmed these two individuals.  Bapu was a Brahmin, a daughter to a family in India’s highest caste.  Her arranged marriage proved to be difficult for her and eventually, she turned to religion to deal with the pressures and stresses of everyday life.  She immersed herself in religion, eventually believing that she was a prophet.  This, of course, landed her in a psychiatric institution, but she would only ever thrive when people allowed her to be the person she believed herself to be. 

Naomi was a single mother of multiple children in an economically depressed area of Chicago.  She had become obsessed with the history of Black women in America and the deprivations her ancestors faced.  Naomi looked at her current situation, growing up in poverty and then becoming a single mother in the same situation as her own mother, and she could see no way out.  She thought she was saving her children when she threw them from a bridge.  This led to incarceration and time in a psychiatric institution.  However, there is a great deal of cultural bias in psychology and not a great deal of knowledge regarding how other races, religions and creeds respond to the idea of getting psychiatric help.  Naomi’s issues weren’t looked at objectively and it took a great deal of time for Naomi to come to terms with her illness.

Strangers to Ourselves asks us to read each story with an open mind as we learn that the field of psychiatry is not always infallible.  Sometimes meds are good for a patient, sometimes psychotherapy is needed.  Some doctors just tend to throw meds at patients without really getting down to the real diagnosis.  Cultural bias can often get in the way of treatment.  Cultural education regarding differences between cultures of countries, socioeconomic cultures, and more are necessary for purveyors of psychology to embark on a useful treatment for any individual patient.

This book questions various methods, mistakes, medications and more without actually saying any one thing is wrong.  By doing so Rachel Aviv forces us to ask our own questions as to whether reform is needed in the field of psychology.  Strangers to Ourselves is a captivating and educating journey and well worth the read.

Strangers to Ourselves
By Rachel Aviv

A gripping book written by someone who was diagnosed very early in her life with anorexia, tells stories of 5 people who each have faced difficulty with their mental health while interlacing her story. The author discusses how medication plays a large, if not diminishing part in assisting people to get back to a positive mental health state. Some people have had prescribed medication for the wrong reasons, as a quick fix and others seek it out as a quick fix. Either way, does it ever really help to get to the root of the issues? For some people, it does assist. How do some people get better and others just can’t make their way?

I found the book very interesting and was fascinated with the story of The Lodge, a place I had never heard of before. “After reading Freud in his father’s library, Dexter decided that Chestnut Lodge could do what no other American hospital had done: psychoanalyze every patient, no matter how far removed from reality they were (as long as they could pay the admission fee).” “Chestnut Lodge embodied the utopian promise of psychiatry, but the story that the institution told about itself was unable to survive the demands of a patient like Ray.” He sued the Lodge because it didn’t make him feel better. Ray is one of the 5 people that Aviv takes on to brilliantly describe their struggles. Aviv vividly describes Ray’s life, his way of being, his inner thoughts, and how he discovered Nathan Kline, the 1974 author of “From Sad to Glad”, hoping Kline’s use of iproniazid dosing would help improve his outlook. Aviv’s powerful storytelling is insightful and emotionally charged. She tells the story of the other 4 people’s personal suffering in the same thoughtful manner. All 4 people couldn’t be more unalike with different backgrounds and perspectives. Kudos to Ms. Aviv for selecting these people to display the vast degree of suffering that goes on in the world and the fact that no one is immune to it and everyone most likely knows or is someone who has suffered from mental illness during their lifetime. More must be done to address this sadly growing problem that pains so many “facing the destroyer of hope and love, the fear of failure, the darkness and sorrow, that hides in all human hearts.”

I found this to be more of an exposé on vulnerable peoples’ lives. This seemed to lack a clear vision and quality reporting.

Really interesting and engaging look at mental health within our society today. Engaging, articulate, and heartfelt.

Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv explores mental illness by examining four fascinating cases. Aviv presents these cases with empathy using her own experiences in a hospital ward to ground the story in the personal. The book is an essential read for those interested in psychology.

This was a fascinating book that pushed the limits of our understanding of mental health from a social perspective, across time and culture. It was told beautifully, with sensitivity and a genuine sense of curiousity. It was not particularly science-driven, but given the lack of success of traditional approaches in humanizing mental health and psychiatric disorders, I think this was a refreshing look at how we metabolize neurodivergence and what we define as a "good life"

As someone who has suffered from and written about mental illness and mental healthcare, I appreciated this nuanced and intricate look into our country's healthcare system. Aviv does so though, without any sweeping critiques. She is measured, empathetic and thorough in her journeys through the lives of those who navigate this complex system.

In Strangers to Ourselves, the New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv makes a cogent argument that psychiatry and psychopharmacology cannot explain all things through her analysis of six patients, including herself. In and of itself, Aviv’s argument initially seems rather pedestrian. However, the heart of the book involving two patients in particular —Naomi and Laura — raise a number serious psychosocial issues that prevent women and minorities from receiving adequate psychiatric care. For example, as Naomi’s case shows, black patients receive fewer medications, and their experiences with poverty and discrimination are not adequately addressed by the mental health system. In contrast, in the case of Laura Delano, we learn that women (and white women in particular) have if anything been overmedicated. Indeed, Aviv shows that benzodiazepines and SSRIs were explicitly advertised for married white women who were having problems confirming to gender stereotypes. 4.5 out of 5 stars. Very thought-provoking.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book.

Deeply powerful in its ability to challenge our commonplace, everyday notions of mental illness--after reading this book, you'll never think of mental illness in the same way.

It was really helpful for me to think deeply about the subject of psychology and psychoanalysis, psychiatry and pharmacology, and social and cultural explanations of mental illness that arise from the four case studies presented in this book.

Rachel Aviv has written a book that will take time for the reader to process. But time spent dwelling on its central subject--how the stories that organize our afflictions and, in some cases our sufferings, may define the course of our lives--will help the reader better understand themselves and the shared world we live in and all try to make sense of.

This is the smartest and most empathetic book about mental health that I've ever read. I'm a big Rachel Aviv fan. I think the New Yorker writer is a genius wordsmith and reporter. What this book does is no different. It tells stories of people struggling with what their diagnoses do and don't say about them with so much heart. What could have been salacious and cynical was anything but.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed reading this book. It was beautifully written.