Customer Reviews

Bipolar Disorder: Insights for Recovery

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a reader, also diagnosed with a bipolar disorder, I appreciate Dr. Mountains Insights for Recovery. The concept that a person can experience both mania and depression at the same time is right on! This idea is explored with a graph on page 108. Dr. Mountain is straight forward and frank when discussing her own illness. She presents an accurate, medically based, and level headed approach to recovery and offers hope to her readers. Advocating for health and wellness, she supports grass root organizations and consumer driven programs that promote recovery.

As a survivor of manic depression myself, I must commend Dr. Mountain. Her book is an immensely valuable public service. She explains the disease to lay people even though she is an experienced physician.

I don't mean to dwell on myself, but I must say I am a writer by trade. Many writers have been diagnosed with this frightful disease. Dr. Mountain hit the nail on the head when she said the following on page 16 about what a manic phase feels like:

"Life felt like a dense atmosphere of swirling gray smog that threatened to suffocate me."

That's how I felt during my manic phases before lithium brought relief. I would go on shopping binges. I would lie awake nights thinking terrible thoughts about George Bush's family trying to control my thoughts. Oooh, how it influenced my writing negatively! I started rambling on about my old college professors having ties to the CIA. Thank G'd for lithium and now Prozac.

Thank you again, Dr. Mountain. You should couple YOUR writing with the lecture circuit. How I'd love to write an article in my Probe newsletter about your gentle approach to this horrible disease! Please start giving lectures around North America. I will be there to spread the word. I got your back, kiddo.

As a sufferer of type I bipolar disorder, I have been struggling with this disease for decades in total ignorance. As a result of a recent diagnosis, I've been reading just about every resource available. I found Dr. Mountain's book provides insightful information and advice through comprehensible narrative in a style that is well suited to the general public. I can certainly identify with her personal experiences and found myself wanting more. I cannot wait for her sequel.

This book gives the reader much insight into the condition. Dr Mountain begins a facet of the disease with the medical terms used, then simplifies it so that the average person can clearly understand what is being dealt with. The fact that Dr Mountain has suffered from this allows her to clearly discribe "How it feels"

It says on the cover that Jane Mountain is a doctor, but she sure doesn't write like one! Her book is really down-to-earth and easy to understand. It was fascinating to read a doctor's account of being a patient. Her recovery techniques are practical and realistic.

The author suffers from bi-polar disorder and writes from a personal as well as a clinical perspective that is helpful. I have one family member who has been diagnosed as bi-polar and another who thinks she is probably hypo-manic. This book helps me understand both better. A better understanding lowers my frustration with things I have always found very difficult. The book also offers some hope by discussing treatments that do work.

I run a small company providing role-players who work with law enforcement personnel in an effort to help them deal more effectively and empathetically with the mentally challenged population. I am also an actor myself. I found this book quite illuminating in the insights it provided about Bipolar Disorder "from the inside." It is now recommended reading for all my actors. Knowledge is our greatest ally against prejudice, and I expect the information contained in this book will be of great help in our representation of bipolar individuals.

I suggest everyone diagnosed with bipolar disorder receive "at least" two copies of BIPOLAR DISORDER: INSIGHTS FOR RECOVERY: one to keep, the rest to give to people with whom they interact. Why? Because author Jane Mountain, MD's straightforward language brings humanity and hope to those who experience bipolar disorder, and her concrete descriptions and anecdotes about what goes on in an afflicted person's mind, better equip their family, friends, and employers to help them recover.

I have friends and family members who experience this disorder, and this book has made me more patient with them. It has also changed the way I refer to them. Before I read BIPOLAR DISORDER, I automatically said, So-and-so "is" bipolar; now I say s/he "has" bipolar "disorder." If nothing else, this change in me makes Mountain's book a success.

Note: Mountain continues her discussion of bipolar disorder in BEYOND BIPOLAR: 7 STEPS TO WELLNESS.

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder about seven years ago. That said, I've tried to read everything I can get my hands on regarding the topic. The Jane Mountain book was just awful. It was written on a fifth-grade level, way too simplified and quite pedestrian. I was surprised since Mountain is a doctor as well as a sufferer. Kay Redfield Jamison, a doctor as well, did a much better job of lending insights into the disorder with "An Unquiet Mind", a seminal work in the field. I would highly recommend her book as well as the Mondimore book. His was clinical, detailed and insightful. The Mountain book was almost demeaning, it was really dumbed-down. I can't believe the high ranking it got, which is why I bought it in the first place. What a waste of time (even though the volume is so short and only took a few hours to read!)