5 comments about Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets.

1. i read this book on a beach in Jamaica. Very quick read, easy to get into and out of. It kept my attention and was very interesting. I could recommend to anyone interested in sociology in general or to learn more of the gang culture of Chicago. Amazing work, I hope to see more from the author in the future.



2. Awesome read. Dont think there are that many books that give you an opportunity to se this side of gang life



3. I loved this book. When we think of the poor/working-poor African American experience, the curious have few options. We have BET, the radio, and obviously television. I like how the reader gets a product that's obviously not to the benefit of the gangster or police officer.
   
   Simply put, you get the experience of what goes on behind the scenes. I feel like many questions I had were answered, but I did have so many more after the read. Sudhir Venkatesh will be the next author I buy ever book for. Much like many others, I learned of this author from Freakonomics (another important read), but this book really goes further than the numbers of Freakonomics.
   
   Sudhir really goes beyond to explain the dynamics of living with a crack distribution syndacate. If my promise to you the reader of being informed is not good enough, allow me to say this: Sudhir Venkatesh is more entertaining as a sociologist than most comedians as comedians. BUY THIS BOOK AND YOU WON'T REGRET IT!



4. This book would make an interesting 100 page book, but drags on a bit and can be overly preachy. Alex Kolowitz's there are no children here...a far better read.



5. Excellent, scary, thought provoking, intriguing! This was an excellent sociological study of urban gang relationships and structure.

5 comments about Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism.

1. This is an amazing account of autism from the view point of a person who lives this life.



2. Temple Grandin does a great job allowing others to enter her world. The book provides insights that are helping me to better relate to my autistic grandson. Definitely recommend reading if you know someone with autism. Thinking in Pictures (Expanded, Tie-in Edition): My Life with Autism (Vintage)



3. Great book, wonderful insight. Temple Grandin opens up a door of opportunity for all of us to experience the world the way she does.



4. This book was a real eye opener for me. I have worked with autistic children for many years but this book helped me understand some of the behaviors that many of them display. I feel it helped me better understand how to relate with them.



5. I read Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin last year and loved it. I found her insights and speculations about the thought processes of animals (and people) truly intriguing. Reading the book felt like taking a privileged journey into a world so different from my own that nevertheless exists side by side with my own. In the case of my dog, that magical world lived entirely intertwined with my own, and I remember the absolute delight I felt when the author suggested that people and dogs might have co-evolved to distribute character traits.
   
   Thinking in Pictures was, of course, first published a long time ago, and my only knowledge of it was references in Animals... and in one of Oliver Sachs' books. But it's been reissued recently to coincide with the HBO film, and each chapter includes updates that I suspect would make it a fascinating read even for someone who'd read the original.
   
   For me, the book gave delightful insights into Temple Grandin's different way of thinking, nicely narrated in a written voice that sounded in my head like that of a dear friend with Asperger's Syndrome. Before reading, I hadn't really understood how one might "think in pictures," but the author explains it so clearly I found myself realizing that sometimes, like when we play memory games, I think in pictures too.
   
   The author makes a point of showing how important her "difference" is to the job she does, and likewise how important it has been for many famous people. A small amount of Asperger's might be a wonderful thing, might even be genius, but too much can mean disaster. Similarly depression and creativity often go hand in hand, and a world where all of us are "normal" would be sadly boring. Her comments about genius students with Asperger's left behind in special ed classes were particularly disturbing, and went hand in hand with her many comments about each individual being different. I found myself wondering to what extent we've "normalized" our education system to a level where everyone's expected to be the same, rather than where everyone can be treated as uniquely as they deserve.
   
   I enjoyed the book and the many ideas, yes and word-pictures, it presents, and I'm very glad to have found it reissued and ready for new readers like me.

5 comments about Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

1. One of the few "life-changing" books I've encountered. The book served as a gateway into the terrifying beauty of consciousness.



2. I was at my local library looking for 'serious' books on dreaming. I was sick of all the flimsy material I was reading and wanted to find out what the big thinkers thought about the subject. This book came up in my library search and I picked it up thinking it would be a book about what a psychologist thought about dreaming - in all honesty I didnt know anything about Jung or had read any of his material. I started reading this book and found out I had picked up his memoirs, which was really disappointing for me as I dont generally like reading autobiographies of any kind - but I simply couldnt put the book down! The imagery of his language drew me in, and a simple sentence was enough to set me into a train of thought that could last for hours on end - it has simply been the most amazing book I have ever accidentally read so I had to buy it! This is not a book for anyone looking for hard facts about anything, but rather an exploration of this man's amazing life. The way he is able to weave the stories of his life together without sounding mystical, over analytical or insane is absolute genius. If you are caught up in the mysteries of the world and are looking for someone to identify with, then you cant go past the life of Jung.



3. At one point in the largely fascinating hodgepodge of his remiscences, musings, and summings-up of his life and work, aka "Memories, Dreams, Reflections," Jung makes a startling admission, the implications of which, if he notices at all, go unremarked upon. That is, Jung describes the development of his psychoanalytic system as driven by his desire to fit his own experiences--many of them unconventional, inexplicable, if not downright paranormal--into some order of normality. "I may be insane," he might well be saying, "but if I can fit my experiences into a coherent template and demonstrate that a lot of other people's experiences can also be explained thereby, then I am perfectly sane."
   
   This attitude doesn't invalidate Jung at all; it merely honestly affirms the solipsistic basis of all our so-called rational thought. We use reason to rationalize how we intrinsically are the way a lawyer uses argument to defend a murderer. Nothing wrong with that...especially when someone is brilliant enough to come up with an explanation that rationalizes--and thereby normalizes--a good deal of the rest of us in the process.
   
   This celebrated book is not so much an autobiography, it's not even completely written by Jung, but sort of cobbled together from a variety of source material, some of it by Jung, some of it transcriptions of what Jung said, all of it, we're assured, overseen by Jung and given his imprimatur of approval. Jung himself makes it clear that this book isnt to be taken as strictly biographical inasmuch as he believed, quite rightly, that autobiography inevitably becomes either hagiography or apologia.
   
   By way of contrast, what Jung does here is give an account of the major events of his life, (including his psychic life--the dreams, visions, etc) that shaped his work. As a result, "Memories, Deams, Reflections" is a curious blend of intimacy and impersonality. Jung divulges the content of some of his most harrowing dreams, but at the same time he manages to give away almost nothing of his personal life with family, friends, lovers, etc.
   
   I find it puzzling that where psychoanalysis is still considered seriously at all, it's dealt with in almost strictly Freudian terms, as if Freud's bacon hasnt already been fried and refried, his water carried and carried back, enough times already. Jung is saying something entirely different than Freud, something, it would seem, far more cogent to our times than Freud's reductionist psychological materialism, which seems now so much a product of the late 19th century. Is the relative marginalization of Jung a judgment passed by the academic elite that Jung, always abundantly more popular, especially among New Age types, is considered a bit of a crackpot, a pseudo-scientific fabulist akin to a Tolkein or a C.S. Lewis, a mystico-literary curiosity suited more for artists and occultists, and not for serious-minded medical men?
   
   Jung is often derided as a god-obsessed, would-be prophet of the New Aeon (as opposed to Freud's scientific atheism), but a careful reading of Jung's reflections in this book shows the matter to be quite different. What Jung tried to point out is that the "god-need" in our psyche is real, even if god, per se, is not. Human beings have a need for "religion" almost as desperate as their need for air. And if it isnt Judaism or Islam or Christianity that satisfies this need it'll be something else, like Marxism, Fascism, Scientology, Environmentalism, Statism, Satanism or any one of the ten-thousand-and-one "self-evident truths" that people will cook up in order to provide a transcendent meaning to their lives. One look at the rabidity of some radical green activists, for instance, is enough to convince you that worship of God has been replaced in their minds by worship of Mother Earth, and the violent fanaticism that led to Inquisitions and Crusades in the one instance is never far from the surface in the other. Our age has its sacred cows just like any other and those who dont worship them are subject to ridicule and ostracism just like they've always been.
   
   Wherever one god is overturned, another rushes in to claim his place. The throne is never left empty for long. Our psyche, it seems, abhors a god-vacuum.
   
   This is an important insight into liberating ourselves from the notion that we now stand liberated from the need for god. That notion, perhaps more than any other, has led to some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.
   
   What Jung points out more than anything else is the limits of reason, boundary beyond which science cannot go. The psyche, he argues, has its own reality and its own needs and they cannot always be squared with what is reasonable or scientific. During a period of intellectual history in which we've been led to believe that science could provide us with verifiable answers to all our questions if only we were clever enough to understand them, Jung's insistence that there exists a class of "truth" that cannot be categorically proven-- except, perhaps, by gathering evidence of its traces in what is common in our dreams, histories, and cultural artifacts--must almost by the definition of "science" be regarded as a form of mystification.
   
   Thus, Jung's rather ill-deserved reputation as a "mystic," "prophet," and "sage." If he were any of those things, it was only incidentally. As "Memories, Dreams, Reflections" amply points out, Jung approached his project with intellectual and scientific rigor, even to the point beyond which science, and to some extent, intellect itself, could not go. At that point, he rather courageously refused to dismiss what could only be limned darkly and sought instead "proof" that it might well exist in the abiding need we have for it to exist. Jung is something of an archaelogist of the psyche. He searches for traces at the bottoms of consciousness, he reconstructs the bones of giants (the Archetypes), and he identifies their evolutionary descendants in our own shifting times.
   
   If god were a brontosaurus long extinct, he's left his tracks in the ossified mud of the lower layers of our brain. No one may ever have seen a brontosaurus in the flesh, but something left those tracks, something left those bones, something Big.
   
   If Jung is a "Christian" as he's often maligned to be, than he's the sort of Christian who would have been burned at the stake. Jung's idea of "Christianity" is one of perpetual heresy, of a "god" in a constant state of development--an idea that he took a lot of heat for in his book "Answer to Job." Jung's notion of religion was always, first-and-foremost, one that demanded an on-going personal relationship between the individual and whatever he might conceive as "god." In the absence of such a relationship, man's connection with god withers; when god stops growing and religion stops developing than Christianity (in this case) ossifies and dies, just like any other mythology
   
   Well, Im in Florida at the moment, in a hotel room, lying next to my boyfriend--its nearly 6pm and we've been out all day. I think I'll give him a massage; altho he might have drifted off to sleep, in which case, I'll let him nap for a while. Anyway, while I'm off taking care of that, I really think you should begin reading "Memories, Dreams, Reflections"--its gotten me back into Jung and reminded me of why I used to love him so much. I've started drawing mandalas; I'm whistling a happy tune; even my coffee tastes fresher. Thank you Carl Gustav Jung!
   
   
   
   
   



4. Memories, Dreams, Reflections will no doubt stand as one of the most influential books I've ever read (and I've been reading a long time). I read an article in the New York Times about Jung's Red Book, which said he used much of the material that came forth during the time of its writing and illustration to co-author his autobiography (Dreams...). So since the Red Book wasn't yet published, and since it was $200 compared to $10 something for Dreams..., I purchased Dreams...Each day of reading this magnificent book was a splendid journey, a meditative circumambulation around one of Jung's (and our collective) mandalas.



5. This "mythical" (Jung's word) book on Jung's life is certainly a beloved "bible" of many Jungian analysts and devoted fans, many claimed to have re-read this book once every year or so (so as to have a closer touch with the psyche of the guru). Fair to say the book is rich in metaphysical speculations, Jung's web-of-dreams as demonstration of his mythical (alchemical?) life goal in understanding human psyche (his own individuation), his famous or infamous encounter with his own unconscious (the raw data as recorded in the Red Book has been an embarrassment of his descendants for many years), near-death experience (rich speculative materials for New Age mediators), and his life-after-death speculation has given rationalization for some current Jungian shrinks to treat patients based on the belief of a trauma happened in one's previous life....not to mention his UFO mention.
   
   Yet, Jung had categorically maintained that his analytical psychology belonged to the realm of natural science and that he himself was a scientist. As such, he never proclaimed the physical existence of metaphysical entities, though he didn't deny the possibility of such physical existence. This position is quite different from some current Jungian psychologists and new age fans of Jung. And Jung made this (him being a scientist) quite clear in the book. For example, concerning the "loud report in the bookcase" (p. 155) that Jung described as having meaning (i.e."synchronized" with or even caused by his psyche), Jung gave the readers a fair view of Freud's scientific argument in Freud own words. I shall quote as length here because it shows the true character of Jung (p 361): "At first I was inclined to ascribe some meaning to it if the noise we heard so frequently when you were here were never heard again after your departure. But since then it has happened over and over again, yet never in connection with my thoughts and never when I was considering you or your special problem. (Not now, either, I add by way of challenge). The phenomenon was soon deprived of all significance for me by something else." Jung didn't refute Freud's argument in his book.
   
   In summary, a book with excellent materials to study Jung from different perspectives. Highly recommended.

5 comments about The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness.

1. I was impressed the author was able to focus to the extent of writing this book. The book was not memorable though and it was not a learning experience for me.



2. I am a psychiatrist and I learned a tremendous amount from Professor Saks. Just to mention two points: she convinced me that for selected persons with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, there is a role for psychoanalysis; and she opened my eyes regarding the contrast between non-cohersive care, which she received in the United Kingdom, vs. involuntary coercion, which she received on return to the United States.



3. I thought this was an excellent book on mental health in general and schizophrenia in particular. A well written,technical, but personal account of what it is like to live with mental illness. I was at times frustrated by her unwillingness to stay on her meds when they were obviously helpful, but I understand why this is true of many patients on anti psychotic drugs. An enlightening book for anyone interested in mental health.



4. I was an undergrad psychology student, not really knowing what I wanted to do. I was interested in mental health, although I had no real professional experieince. My experience was living with a Bi-Polar grandmother. Someone, alas I cannot rmember who, recommended this book to me before I started an internship with a local community mental healh agency. This book changed my life and prepared my for working with people diagnosed with schizophrenia. Saks described her own experieinces so well, so clearly, that I felt I had a place to start with my clients. I am now in grad school, working towards my MA in counseling psychology and will not look back.



5. As a very well-educated person, the author describes her experiences in a compelling and very readable, insightful manner. With a family member who suffers from schizophrenia, I still learned much from the author's experience. Highly recommended for anyone interested in or dealing with serious mental illness

3 comments about Partner to the Poor: A Paul Farmer Reader (California Series in Public Anthropology).

1. A very interesting and informative book Very accessible. A great companion piece to read after Mountains beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. I found it compelling and inspiring. Made me go and give to Partners to the Poor before I even got into the meat of the book.



2. This will be a short review, but as reviews are lacking for this new collection I thought I would throw in my two cents. This volume is fantastic as an introduction to Paul Farmer. It is comprehensive and less repetetive than some of his other published volumes (although there is still overlap in cases examples from work to work). The thematic sections greatly aid scholarship. Introductions to the sections and revision of many chapters make for a very solid volume. Recommend for any person in the medical profession and especially those interested in global, development, human rights, international law, or international policy.



3. Editor Haun Saussy has done a fine job of organizing this collection of some of Paul Farmer's diverse publications, placing the articles in contexts which will enhance the reader's appreciation. However, a reader could open "Partners to the Poor" at random, start reading and be inspired by Farmer's perspectives. Farmer's unique intelligence, deep morality and sharp humor are expressed on nearly every page. Moreover, the reader will want to know more, through Farmer's thoughts on the subsequent pages and through the reader's own reinvigorated thinking.
   
   Paul Farmer connects material and ideas from scientific, medical, sociological, anthropological, and literary fields, and from personal and professional experience on several continents over several decades, always privileging the perspectives of the poor thereby providing many fresh ways for readers to understand the relationship between the rich world and the poor world. And Farmer provides the reader with new ways to think about reducing inequalities between those two worlds.
   
   Many topics and descriptions of Farmer's patients' lives are heart-rending, but one also emerges joyful to be a human after being in Paul Farmer's written presence.

2 comments about Growing Up Jung: Coming of Age as the Son of Two Shrinks.

1. It's rare to come across a book that is so absorbing, suspenseful and such real fun to read that I don't want to put it down, yet is true to life in its humor and full of wise understanding intelligently, even cunningly, articulated. It's a good story about growing up; as an elder still doing that, I found it quite valuable. The author is quite outrageously honest. The book is also a good education, in a practical fashion, about basic Jungian ideas on psychological growth toward maturity and independence and the inevitable challenges on the way.



2. Do you ever wonder why you do or say things that don't fit your self image ? Ever wonder why your relationships so frequently have the same theme, or how they might be related to your family of origin ? Do you wonder what lies beneath addictions and obsessions, yours and those closest to you ? If not, don't waste your time on this book.
   
   This is a well-written and engaging look - honest, witty and stimulating - at these kinds of questions via one young man's struggle to emerge (he and Carl Jung would say "individuate") from a nurturing but uniquely directive family environment. I call it directive not because it specified content preferred by his parents but rather because it specified definitively how one gets the job done. Not "we want you to be a lawyer, or an engineer or a musician", but rather "you'll want to discover your true self, and here's the way to go about it."
   
   The author is a columnist for Toronto's Globe & Mail and a blogger at Psychology Today. He's an insightful writer.

5 comments about Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness.

1. The mere fact that Wm. Styron survived the deep clinical depression from which he suffered about the age of 60 is a miracle in and of itself. That he survived to write such a beautiful treatise on it is another.
   
   The medications available in the late 80's for depression were almost worse than the disease itself and none helped him. He prepared himself for his suicide, destroying a personal journal and was at the point of deciding which method he would use when he found the courage to ask for hospitalization instead. Despite an almost useless psychiatrist, he got through it. The hospital saved his life, but he makes a strong point of the fact that it isn't a panacea, it was what worked for him.
   
   I agree with the author, the word 'depression' is not the correct word for what one feels in the depth of the disease. That word has trivialized what is almost unbearable pain and anguish.
   
   He stated, "The weather of depression is unmodulated, its light a brownout". I found that line to be particularly apt.
   
   No two people who suffer from depression have the same experiences. I suffered with a very serious episode for almost 7 months in 2000-2001. The antidepressants made me suicidal (I wasn't screened for bipolar disorder). I thank my amazing liver, and the fact that it obviously wasn't my time, for my life.
   
   If you haven't been in a clinical depression, you can't possibly understand how it feels. The utter lack of any joy in life is incredibly painful.
   
   What I took away from this amazing little book was the feeling of hope and Mr. Styron's statement that depression is generally a self-limiting illness. With help, the vast majority of sufferers survive. The fact that he had an amazing wife was probably his saving grace.
   
   If you have a loved one who suffers from this debilitating disease, READ this book! I've never read anything that came as close to actually describing the true feelings one experiences in this disease as this book did.



2. Dear William Styron,
   
   I write to you today knowing that you died in the Autumn of 2006. Hopefully you will not resent my intrusion into your long and much deserved rest.
   
   After talking for many years about the shortest book of your extinguished writing career, you should be pleased to know I have just finished reading "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness" and it is clear to me, perhaps much to your undeserved distress, that we have been brothers in the arms of the Devil named depression.
   
   Being somewhat younger now than you were when you passed on, I came to know you in likely the least admirable way from your perspective, by the motion picture "Sophie's Choice" via Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline, followed by reading the book, and then your other books "The Confessions of Matt Turner" and "The Long March.
   
   I see by your admission in Darkness Visible that you might believe that depression was in your soul from childhood. This I do not dispute but we do not share similar backgrounds.
   
   The monster that I have come to call "the hole" came to me in 2003 and eventually swallowed me up by July. As I look back, as you did in your book, what was besetting me day by day for 6 or 7 months was a mystery to me, a surprise over time from an unexpected and most unwelcome visitor. I really did not understand what was happening or where I was headed.
   
   Like you, I eventually came as most depression sufferers do to the wall of death aka suicide, and like you, but for apparently different reasons, I was able by the grace of God, or luck, or total accident to retreat and save myself.
   
   Round two came several years later. Previously hardened by wrestling with this monster, even though the ideation of doing myself in was a daily companion, I made an oath to my soul and to those who love me even at my worst that suicide was a bad joke I would laugh at for the rest of my days. Feel like dying? Oh yes. Suicide? Not on my to do list.
   
   Lucky me, I have climbed out of the hole again and life is better and richer and more creative and more interesting today than it has ever been. I am confirmation of your postulation that there can be a "shining world" upon recovery.
   
   I lost my great friend and brother I never had, James Travis Cackler, to depression induced suicide in April of the year of your death. I was the eulogizer at his funeral, the hardest job I have ever had to do. I loved this man so much.
   
   To you Sir William, I say thank you for exposing the bare and tender underbelly of your soul, your dreadful fall and triumphant rise from the suicidal grips of this insidious disease.
   
   And to those of you who are in this dreadful state of mind and body, and to those of you who are falling but do not yet know to what depth you will descend, I can tell you that depression is Hell. But, you can and most likely will escape and recover. But, if you choose to kill yourself - and it IS a choice - all hope is lost.
   
   We who have been to the far side of Hell and back, and in many cases more than once, can tell you better than anyone why suicide is a very bad idea. Because we have suffered as you are suffering and returned and did not do ourselves in, we are proof of something that is hard to imagine, especially the first time you are in the hole.
   
   The old theme song from the TV series "MASH" says that suicide is painless? Perhaps you can turn your lights off permanently without too much suffering, but you will NEVER in Heaven or Hell be able to undo the pain you cause to those who love you and fellow sufferers of depression who love you even though they have never met you.
   
   By hook or by crook or by luck or by miracle of miracles, find yourself a brother or sister who has been in the same hole you are in and has survived. William and I are both able to tell you that there is light at the end of the tunnel and it is not an oncoming train.
   
   Hope is your reward earned by enduring unimaginable pain. You can be whole again and you can honor your good fortune by helping others survive and prosper, as our colleague in suffering William Styron has done in his most eloquent and excruciating book. Read, live and prosper. After all you have been through, you more than anyone deserve this.
   
   Thank you so much, William, for helping us help ourselves. I love and salute you. And to my fellow compatriots, 5000 IU of a good quality vitamin D-3 per day is what works for me. I have never taken pharmaceuticals for depression, and I never will.
   
   If you are a fellow sufferer, or if you know someone who is, read Darkness Visible, save a life.



3. Rosalyn Carter pointed out in her 2010 book Within our Reach that one in four people in the United States suffer from a mental disease.
   Best-selling author William Styron (1925-2006), known for his The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie's Choice and other books, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and other awards, suffered from severe depression, just like the famous painter Vincent Van Gogh and all too many others. But he pulled through and describes his descent into madness and his recovery in this book with his narrative skill.
   Styron had achieved public acclaim by 1985 for several of his books and had come to France to receive an award. He had suffered bouts of depression prior to 1985, but the depression hit him hard in France and caused him to act improperly to the people who were praising him.
   He describes his depression as feelings of self-hatred, worthlessness, anxiety, and a failure of self esteem, despite his success and public acclaim. His mind was disordered and he lost his ability to think rationally and he did foolish things. He emphasizes that depression is so unusual that people who never suffered from it cannot imagine it. He says that the word "depression," called "melancholia" in 1303, understates the severity of the disease and suggests that a more powerful name, perhaps "brainstorm," should be used.
   He describes his embarrassing behavior at the award ceremony, the story of the famed writer Albert Camus who also suffered from depression and who he suspected committed suicide, and sketches the life of others who suffered from the disease, such as Abbie Hoffman, Abraham Lincoln, and a famous beautiful actress who became ugly when she suffered from the disease. He describes his psychiatrist who mouthed platitudes like an ignorant clergyman and encouraged him to talk, his seven week hospitalization, group therapy, art therapy, and medicines, none of which worked, and all of which heightened his feeling of hopelessness. But he got well because, perhaps, the illness simply ran its course. This last observation should give people suffering from the disease some hope.



4. I wasn't surprised at the quality of writing in this book, but by the depth of Styron's description of his own depression. This is a good book to help acquire a vocabulary for conveying the heaviness of depression, and for knowing that depression is not an illness of only the weak or ignorant. I was left wanting to know more about what initiated his illness.



5. Although it's billed as "A Memoir of Madness," "Darkness Visible" is actually a short essay by William Styron that was first published in a different form in VANITY FAIR magazine. He didn't suffer from life-long depression, so this book is only about his (very brief) dip in the water, which was exacerbated (or caused) by his abrupt withdrawal from alcohol and/or his generous use of the prescription drug Halcion. Still, "Darkness Visible" is incredibly well-written and powerful at communicating his descent into depression. After finishing it, "Darkness Visible" remains just the barest of sketches even in its expanded length and left me wanting more. Perhaps that's more of a compliment than it sounds--a book-length memoir in the same vein wouldn't necessarily be as effective.

5 comments about Second Sight: An Intuitive Psychiatrist Tells Her Extraordinary Story and Shows You How To Tap Your Own Inner Wisdom.

1. I'm about finished with this book and have found the story and insight on intuition fascinating. My favorite chapter is the one on dreams. By sharing her own experiences, good and bad, Judith Orloff tells truths about an ability that we all possess to some degree. The encouragement to pursue investigation of one's abilities in present by the sharing of her story. The chapter on dreams is especially applicable and extremely comprehensive.



2. Excellent Integration of the essentially so important Intuition and the Ratio,the rational mind.
   The authentic way,Dr.Judith Orloff shares her observations and intuitive insights made me love this book.
   As a musician and creative worker myself it strenghtened my intuitive ways beautifully,thank You very much!
   and will see You at one of Your next workshops!
   
   Silvie Rider, Musician,Singer&Composer



3. I am enjoying reading this book. The stories are interesting and inspire me to nurture my intuition. Dr Judith teaches us in gentle ways that we too can be more intuitive and where to start. An easy read for the curious.



4. In this wonderful book Dr. Orloff tells a fascinating, insightful, and forthright tale of her life as a very gifted intuitive. Her willingness to bare her soul regarding her experiences growing up with intuitive abilities is admirable, and the quality of the writing is nothing less than exceptional. As I read the book I honestly got the sense at times that she was sitting across from me in my own living room talking to me as an old friend would. The many stories she relates about how she's been able to successfully integrate conventional medical/psychiatric care with her intuitive skills make for very interesting reading indeed. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the entire subject of intuition.



5. Having read "Positive Energy" by Dr. Orloff I was eager to learn more of her life story and how she was able to successfully merge two divergent worlds-medicine and the world of intuition. As a mental health practitioner for 30 years ( in traditional settings) I have frequently wondered if the field was missing a core piece in terms of healing. But mental health practitioners in traditional settings often encounter skepticism or ridicule when the idea of intuition is raised in a clinical setting. Often, the idea of paranormal or intuition is not mentioned out loud but discussed quietly among accepting colleagues. Finding "Second Sight" was particularly exciting for me because Dr. Orloff utilizes both her academic training and her innate intuitive abilities. A trained psychiatrist who combines the best of both worlds!
   
   Judith Orloff reminds all of us that there is much in healing that can transcend scientific data originating from the rational or linear brain. In telling her own fascinating story, she illustrates that often people can be dismissed or written off as emotionally/ psychiatrically disturbed when intuitive experiences are wrongly viewed as pathological or dysfunctional. It is a poignant comment about how quickly the professionals can slap a label on a person who may be struggling to understand their own emerging intuitive abilities. It also reminds us that the "helping professions" are sometimes not so helpful.
   
   If Dr. Orloff merely told the story of her life journey- the book would be worth reading for that piece alone. But wrapped in the context of her own story are important insights about how we view reality- and how each individual has the seed of intuition- just waiting to be nurtured. There are sections also that are quite helpful in terms of guiding the reader through exercises to facilitate intuitive growth.
   
   I love this book-and will continue to give to friends...Can hardly wait for the movie!! And there really should be a film about this special life...
   Laura Neville LSCSW

5 comments about Denial: A Memoir of Terror.

1. ...but this wasn't it.
   
   There is no question that what the author went through during the assault was terrible, and that she is to be admired for having surmounted her trauma to lead a successful career, but unfortunately, simply having a terrible experience in one's background doesn't automatically make one a good writer. The book rambles and jumps around in a rather ostentatiously "literary" style. Perhaps the writer was attempting to use the literary style to simulate the effects of trauma and PTSD for the reader; however, it didn't work for me. The rambling, disjointed narrative detracts from the power of the account; the author's exploration of the effects of her ordeal on her psyche, which should have been gripping, instead comes across as facile, almost self-absorbed and/or self-aggrandizing. She introduces hints that her grandfather had abused her previously, but these lead nowhere and are never resolved. Of course, this is intended to recreate for the reader her own experience of uncertainty as to whether her grandfather abused her, but this device comes off as overly arty and precious. As others have pointed out, her thesis--that the roots of terror can be found in shame--is not particularly original (the less kind might characterize it as trite), and I was somewhat mystified that she didn't see fit to reference the body of work on this subject. All in all, this book unfortunately left me cold.



2. Denial is a difficult book, uncomfortable to read and even more uncomfortable to review. It is a first-hand, detailed account by a Harvard expert on terrorism of her rape by a stranger when she was 15 years old. Using police records and some of the same methodology she used to interview international terrorists, Jessica Stern tries to understand the man who raped her in 1973, as well as the rape's long-term sequelae for herself. Her story is often vivid, surprisingly candid and well- described but, at times, disjointed and unprocessed. The aftereffects of trauma inform both its content and style. Stern made the decision not to "contaminate" her research by reading any of the many books that pertain to aspects of her memoir. Some of these books have become classic texts. On rape: Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rapeand Alice Sebold's Lucky: A Memoir. On motherless daughters: Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss, Second Edition On the many after-effects of sexual violence, Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror and on the offspring of Holocaust survivors, Eva Hoffman's After Such Knowledge: Where Memory of the Holocaust Ends and History Begins or my own Children of the Holocaust: Conversations with Sons and Daughters of Survivors. I respect the reasons for Stern's choice as a memoirist but think it was a misguided one. For a full review of Denial, see PRI/The World's Book Page.



3. I have been dreading writing this review for a couple of days. I didn't like the book. I was disappointed which says something for my own expectations rather than the author. Given the author's expertise and academic accomplishment, I expected to be "wowed" by her insight and experience. Instead I felt like I was reading a teenager's diary which would actually make a lot of sense, since she hasn't opened this compartment since the horrific experience when she was 15.
   
   What made it feel like a diary of a teenager was the constant exploration of personal interpretation, innuendo, and perception. Dr. Stern provides an inner dialogue of her journey from the moment the detective calls her to the publication of her book. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I simply thought it contained irrelevant information along with some golden nuggets. For instance, while talking with any number of people, the conversation is reported verbatim, which I liked. On the inside, the author is contemplating birds, surfaces, and discusses the way the person uses verb tense. Many of these inner dialogues come to naught.
   
   Additionally, the author suffers from disturbing thoughts and images, which I believe is not uncommon. What bothered me is the innuendo that her grandfather performed sexual acts upon her prior to her rape. Yet this is never explored nor addressed. Did he? Don't know. So was that tidbit relevant? I don't know. The reader seeks closure.
   
   What I liked about the book is that the author weaves the similarities of terror and the different ways of integrating the terror-inducing experiences through stories of her father's history during the Holocaust, soldiers who have suffered from PTSD, and people who have been traumatized by sexual acts.
   
   I very much enjoyed Dr. Stern's epilogue, where she uses her professional experience and knowledge to tie the above mentioned groups together. Dr. Stern is intelligent, articulate, and experienced. Her experiences were simply horrific. Writing a memoir, I believe, was very therapeutic for her. I also do not doubt that many people will find her journey interesting and helpful.
   
   For me, it was a solid 3 star experience.



4. Exposing herself in ways authors rarely do, the author forces the reader to evaluate their own ability to handle trauma and family relationships. A look at PTSD that is relevant to our times and has always been with us, even if we didn't know what to call it. Originally I purchased the book for insights into her rapist, I was acquainted with him after his prison years, her handling of trauma became the real story. Very well done.



5. This is a harrowing tale of rape, but the author draws such a harsh portrait of herself, that it detracts greatly from the book.

1 comments about Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimensions of Carl Jung's Life and Teachings.

1. If you are interested in Carl Jung's esoteric works, as I am, you will have had to dig around in his books. A little mention of this here, that there. Jung himself was unsure he wanted this information disseminated, much less compiled -- he lived in a much more staid and judgmental time than we do (partly thanks to him!). Many of the ideas we take for granted, a collective unconscious, e.g., originated with him and in his mystical or shamanic experiences. Hypnagogia, active imagination, visionary experience. The author has done a very good job of bringing much of Jung's experience together for the reader, who may also use this book as a guide to further reading. Very nice to have -- I have already read a borrowed copy and am now buying one to keep.