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  • Strangers to Ourselves

  • Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
  • Written by: Rachel Aviv
  • Narrated by: Andi Arndt
  • Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
  • 3.6 out of 5 stars (5 ratings)

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Strangers to Ourselves

Written by: Rachel Aviv
Narrated by: Andi Arndt
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Publisher's Summary

The highly anticipated debut from the acclaimed award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv compels us to examine how the stories we tell about mental illness shape our sense of who we are.

Strangers to Ourselves poses fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Rachel Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. She follows an Indian woman celebrated as a saint who lives in healing temples in Kerala; an incarcerated mother vying for her children's forgiveness after recovering from psychosis; a man who devotes his life to seeking revenge upon his psychoanalysts; and an affluent young woman who, after a decade of defining herself through her diagnosis, decides to go off her meds because she doesn't know who she is without them. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv's gripping exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel—until it no longer does.

Aviv asks how the stories we tell about mental disorders shape their course in our lives—and our identities, too. Challenging the way we understand and talk about illness, her account is a testament to the porousness and resilience of the mind.

©2022 Rachel Aviv (P)2022 Penguin Random House Canada

What the critics say

"In this penetrating, landmark book, Rachel Aviv investigates what she calls the 'psychic hinterlands,' drawing on her customary vivid reporting and her own extraordinary personal story to pose unsettling questions about the ways in which we reckon with mental illness by categorizing it, diagnosing it, giving it a name. Threading together the intimate and emotionally shattering stories of a series of very different people who have struggled to live with and to understand their own psychological afflictions, Aviv has created an arresting work of profound empathy and insight."—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain

What listeners say about Strangers to Ourselves

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    3 out of 5 stars
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A Short Read or Lisen

Discusses the struggles of specific people with mental health issues. I'll try to listen to it again as I need to glean more from it. Reader did a good job.

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Narration cuts off abruptly in spots

Poor sound editing. Lose a lot of the impact of the stories because of this.