Kay Redfield Jamison
Kay Redfield Jamison
Kay Redfield Jamisonis an American clinical psychologist and writer. Her work has centered on bipolar disorder, which she has had since her early adulthood. She holds a post of Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and is an Honorary Professor of English at the University of St Andrews...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth22 June 1946
CountryUnited States of America
suicide bipolar optimist
I am by temperament an optimist, and I thought from the beginning that there was much to be written about suicide that was strangely heartening.
stupid optimistic feel-better
I remember sitting in his office a hundred times during those grim months and each time thinking, What on earth can he say that will make me feel better or keep me alive? Well, there never was anything he could say, that's the funny thing. It was all the stupid, desperately optimistic, condescending things he didn't say that kept me alive; all the compassion and wamrth I felt from him that could not have been said; all the intelligence, competence, and time he put into it; and his granite belief that mine was a life worth living.
bipolar college common exactly illness knowing reasons spend start students talk terribly time
It's more common than not that bipolar illness will start in the teens. One of the reasons I spend a lot of time on college campuses is exactly that reason. It's terribly important to talk to students about knowing these things in advance.
enthusiasm intellect power recognize value vast
It is important to value intellect and discipline, of course, but it is also important to recognize the power of irrationality, enthusiasm and vast energy.
bad books convinced cool doctors experience graduate impress intense learned sort students teach
An intense temperament has convinced me to teach not only from books but from what I have learned from experience. So I try to impress upon young doctors and graduate students that tumultuousness, if coupled to discipline and a cool mind, is not such a bad sort of thing.
bad harder mania
Mania is as bad as it gets. If not treated, it will become worse, more frequent, and harder to treat.
psychiatry
I say I'm an academic: a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. And I write.
hard
'An Unquiet Mind' wasn't hard to write in terms of the actual writing of it.
cancer expect heart less matters treatment
We expect well-informed treatment for cancer or heart disease; it matters no less for depression.
depressed middle people treated
In some cases, some people do get depressed in the middle of their grief, and they really need to be treated for depression.
creativity general higher rate studies suggest
There are a lot of studies that suggest a higher rate of creativity in bipolars than the general population.
understanding
Scientists have made extraordinary advances in understanding the brain and its disorders.
believe bipolar combined compliance critical longer major medication patients remains work
Lithium remains the gold standard, but many drugs now treat bipolar disorder. Medication is critical and should be combined with psychotherapy. Compliance is a major problem. Patients believe that once they're better, they no longer need the medication. It doesn't work that way.
human
With grief, you have reason to despair; it's a human thing.