Mental Health Memoir

Sigmund Freud's theories on the unconscious revolutionized the way we approach human behavior. This essential introduction explores his theories and the implications they had for understanding an array of psychological issues, including trauma, repressed memory, childhood development, and more. It also explores Freud's life as a scientist - the conflicts and controversies he faced when proposing his new ideas to his contemporaries - and the ways in which his theories have influenced psychology today. Perfect for students or anyone wanting to get to grip with Freud's ideas.

Kelly Williams Brown had 700 bad days. Her marriage collapsed, she broke three limbs in separate and unrelated incidents, her father was diagnosed with cancer, and she fell into a deep depression that ended in what could delicately be referred to as a “rest cure” at an inpatient facility. Before that, she had several very good years: She wrote a best-selling book, spoke at NASA, had a beautiful wedding, and inspired hundreds of thousands of readers to live as grown-ups in an often-screwed-up world, though these accomplishments mostly just made her feel fraudulent.

In this touching and witty book, award-winning presenter and comic Robin Ince uses the life of the stand-up as a way of exploring some of the biggest questions we all face. Where does anxiety come from? How do we overcome imposter syndrome? What is the key to creativity? How can we deal with grief? Informed by personal insights from Robin as well as interviews with some of the world's top comedians, neuroscientists and psychologists, this is a hilarious and often moving primer to the mind.

Studies in Forensic Psychiatry is the product of extensive research into the psychological motivations for criminal behavior. Bernard Glueck draws his conclusions from a huge wealth of experience with the criminally insane and with the public health care systems. He recognized the need for criminology to be expanded to reflect a deeper understanding of motive and inclination on the part of the criminal, rather than being considered solely in terms of the criminal act itself.

On the morning of August 23, 1973, a man wearing a wig, makeup, and a pair of sunglasses walked into the main branch of Sveriges Kreditbank, a prominent bank in central Stockholm. He ripped out a submachine gun, fired it into the ceiling, and shouted, "The party starts!" This was the beginning of a six-day hostage crisis - and media circus - that would mesmerize the world, drawing into its grip everyone from Sweden's most notorious outlaw to the prime minister himself.

In this provocative book, award-winning journalist Patricia Pearson argues that our culture is in denial of women's innate capacity for aggression. We don't believe that women batter their husbands or abuse the majority of children in North America. We ignore the 200 percent increase in crime by women in a period when most crime statistics are dropping. Pearson weaves the stories of women such as Karla Homolka and Mary Beth Tinning (who smothered eight of her children) with the results of criminologists and psychiatrists to expose the myth of female innocence.

On acclaimed writer Susan Gubar’s 70th birthday, she receives a beautiful ring from her husband. As she contemplates their sustaining relationship, she begins to consider how older lovers differ from their youthful counterparts - and from ageist stereotypes - and realizes that age cannot wither love. A memoir proving that the heart’s passions have no expiration date, Late-Life Love rejoices in second chances.

The Psychedelic Diaries marries traditional memoir to today’s conversations around sex, drugs, and current world events by following 24-year-old Kaitlin Tilotta’s adventures as a professional dominatrix on a deliberate five-month experimental psychedelic drug bender.

The debut of an important new literary voice: Marin Sardy's extraordinarily affecting, fiercely intelligent memoir unflinchingly traces the path of the schizophrenia that runs in her family. Against the starkly beautiful backdrop of Anchorage, Alaska, where the author grew up, Marin Sardy weaves a fearless account of the shapeless thief - the schizophrenia - that kept her mother immersed in a world of private delusion and later manifested in her brother, ultimately claiming his life.

Sandra Allen did not know their uncle Bob very well. As a child, Sandy had been told Bob was “crazy”, that he had spent time in mental hospitals while growing up in Berkeley in the '60s and '70s. But Bob had lived a hermetic life in a remote part of California for longer than Sandy had been alive, and what little Sandy knew of him came from rare family reunions or odd, infrequent phone calls. Then in 2009, Bob mailed Sandy his autobiography.

For most of human history, mental illness has been largely untreatable. Sufferers lived their lives - if they survived - in and out of asylums, accumulating life's wreckage around them. In 1948, all that changed when an Australian doctor and recently returned prisoner of war, working alone in a disused kitchen, set about an experimental treatment for one of the scourges of mankind - manic depression, or bipolar disorder. That doctor was John Cade and in that small kitchen he stirred up a miracle.

Confessions by Leo Tolstoy, narrated by Gary Middleton, is a deeply introspective and philosophical work that chronicles Tolstoy’s spiritual journey and existential search for meaning. In this profound and honest memoir, Tolstoy confronts life's most difficult questions—regarding faith, purpose, and the human condition. This timeless work captures his struggle to reconcile the reality of life and death, eventually leading to a spiritual awakening.

Baynard Woods thought he had escaped the backwards ways of the South Carolina he grew up in, a world defined by country music, NASCAR, and the confederacy. He’d fled the South long ago, transforming himself into a politically left-leaning writer and educator. Then he was accused of discriminating against a Black student at a local university. How could I be racist? he wondered. Whiteness was a problem, but it wasn’t really his problem. He taught at a majority Black school and wrote essays about education and Civil Rights.

Elliot Rodger considered himself to be intelligent, refined, handsome, fashionable, and charming. He spent years trying to be cool so women would like him. He thought if he just wore expensive and fashionable clothing, had a better car, or if he were rich, then women would throw themselves at him. In fact, he thought himself to be “The Supreme Gentleman”.

In Simply Freud, Professor Stephen Frosh offers an engaging and accessible introduction to Freud and his major ideas, including the unconscious, sexual repression, free association, and the interpretation of dreams. At the same time, he reminds us that Freud was also a person - ambitious, conflicted, amorous, irritable, blind about some things, prophetically insightful about others.

In the tradition of Ann Rule and the international best seller Women Who Kill comes the first book that chronicles the psychological profiles of spouses who kill, from Scott Peterson to Rabbi Fred Neulander, told by a renowned psychotherapist who specializes in spousal behavior and the criminal mind.

From the moment Lotte first met Ben, she knew they were meant to be together. And for a few years, their life was truly idyllic: flourishing careers, adored friends, and travel to every corner of the planet. But when Ben was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Lotte was catapulted into the uncharted landscape of cancer medicine, becoming his caregiver overnight. With the world around them in lockdown, they refused to give up the fight for his survival, travelling from London to Mexico in hope of a cure at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Phil Chalmers has spent more than a decade visiting high security prisons to interview young offenders, his mission is to attempt to answer the questions we all are asking. In Inside the Mind of a Teen Killer, Phil explores the reasons why teens kill; the warning signs we must be looking for; and offers a game plan to keep our homes, schools, and communities safe. This book may help save your life or the life of a child you love!

Spanning childhood to early adulthood, through stories of abuse, being bullied, experimentation with drugs and alcohol, inpatient stays on psych wards, a night in jail, his college days in the fraternity, hitchhiking across America, and his time in a third world country, John gives the listener a personal and up-close look into his life as a manic depressive. The stories are sad, shocking, and at times funny as he shares his antics while at his most manic and delusional.

On a summer night in 2009, three lives intersected in one American neighborhood. Two people newly in love - Teresa Butz and Jennifer Hopper, who spent many years trying to find themselves and who eventually found each other - and a young man on a dangerous psychological descent: Isaiah Kalebu, age 23, the son of a distant, authoritarian father and a mother with a family history of mental illness. All three paths forever altered by a violent crime, all three stories a wake-up call to the system that failed to see the signs.