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
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.
psychiatry
I say I'm an academic: a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. And I write.
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.
numbness despair wish
I wish I could explain it so someone could understand it. I'm afraid it's something I can't put into words. There's just this heavy, overwhelming despair - dreading everything. Dreading life. Empty inside, to the point of numbness. It's like there's something already dead inside. My whole being has been pulling back into that void for months. (81)
bereavement want goes-on
I realized that it was not that I didn’t want to go on without him. I did. It was just that I didn’t know why I wanted to go on
insane attractive periods
Mania can be as terrifying as it gets. It is certainly as insane as one gets and so it's frightening when it gets out of control, but there are periods of mania when it can be extremely attractive.
psychosis violence illness
Once a restless or frayed mood has turned to anger, or violence, or psychosis, Richard, like most, finds it very difficult to see it as illness, rather than being willful, angry, irrational or simply tiresome.
vulnerable temperament ardent
An ardent temperament makes one very vulnerable to dreamkillers.
substance essentials behavior
Moods are such an essential part of the substance of life, of one's notion of oneself, that even psychotic extremes in mood and behavior somehow can be seen as temporary, even understandable, reactions to what life has dealt.
self-esteem sleep thinking
Who would not want an illness that has among its symptoms elevated and expansive mood, inflated self-esteem, abundance of energy, less need for sleep, intensified sexuality, and- most germane to our argument here-"sharpened and unusually creative thinking" and "increased productivity"?
social-values ancient confidentiality
Confidentiality is an ancient and well-warranted social value.
human
With grief, you have reason to despair; it's a human thing.