Strangers to ourselves : stories of unsettled minds /
Rachel Aviv.
- London : Harvill Secker, 2022.
- 276 p ; 24 cm.
Prologue: Rachel "Someone better than me" Ray "Am I really this? Am I not this? What am I?" Bapu "Is this difficulty I am facing the lesson of total surrender?" Naomi "You're not listening to me" Laura "He could read my mind, as though I didn't need to explain myself" Epilogue: Hava "Stranger to myself"
Aviv has selected four individuals who are capable of questioning the theories and explanations offered for their mental states—individuals who, at some point, fundamentally reject psychiatry’s framework and view their suffering through different lenses, such as spirituality, loneliness, or legitimate existential despair. Aviv believes that a writer's role is to listen, imagine, and share stories that other disciplines may overlook. In addition to her subjects' narratives, she will explore the evolution of psychiatry, paying particular attention to its troubling imposition throughout colonial history.