Customer Reviews

The Dinosaur Man: Tales of Madness and Enchantment from the Back Ward

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Few readers of this review will consider themselves to be schizophrenic. After reading the stories shared by Susan Baur in this book, however, you will see that being human gives us many things in common, especially our habit of telling stories about ourselves to ourselves. We constantly retell ourselves stories about our past (yesterday, twenty years ago, it matters not), and revise them so that our perception of who we were fits who we are, and vice versa--we interpret our situation and experience now in terms of how we view our lives.

As she learned to listen to schizophrenic clients--to give them her genuine attention--Baur discovered that their often wildly sexual and violent, and apparently random stories about their lives were actually attempts to protect themselves from aspects of their past, and to make sense of their present in that light. Although her conversations with the "Dinosaur Man" are woven throughout the book, she tells other stories that illustrate this theme, including that of a Vietnam vet struggling with dreams that came from his wartime experiences, of a family apparently more dysfunctional than most, and that of a client who remembered the "best doctor ever".

Her patience and compassion, so strikingly illustrated in "Confiding" (another 5-star book), eventually encourage them to reveal their deep need to be accepted and respected for who they are (even if their description and explanation of their experiences seem difficult to swallow), which is (as she points out) no different than anyone else's.

This book challenges the perception that schizophrenia requires primarily chemical treatment, and encouraged me to see the human in everyone. I recommend this most highly.