Customer Reviews

In a House of Dreams and Glass

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This book is Klitzman's memoir of his time in residency, training as a psychiatrist. There are many memoirs of medical training in print, and this one does bear some similarities to the others, but there is plenty of original content too. Like most memoirs of residency, Klitzman's training brings into stark relief the inadequacies of the mental health system, and the inability of well-meaning practitioners to deliver the best medical care.

Some of the issues, dealing with insurance companies, nurses, and other doctors are shared across disciplines. But psychiatry presents a whole new set of issues, and Klitzman's treatment of these make this book well worth reading. While medical memoirs are full of tales of senior doctors mistreating students, the psychiatrists seemed to be using their students as experiments. Klitzman notes that residents were frequently treated like patients. Where Klitzman is at his most eloquent is in his discussion of the difficulties of treating the mind, rather than the body. Serving a patient population that does not necessarily want to get well, navigating disagreements about drug vs. behavioral therapy, these issues provide new challenges Klitzman had not faced in treating the body.

This is a well-written, passionate memoir. Much has changed in psychiatry in the fifteen years since this was published. Prozac was the new wonder drug when Klitzman was writing. This is still a book well-worth reading. The drugs may have changed, but many of the issues remain.

I am considering studying to be a psychiatrist and I found this account extraordinarily informative. The author does a great job highlighting the frequent challenges and infrequent rewards of a psychiatric residency.

This book is interesting reading for anyone who wants to know more about the mental health treatment 'industry' as displayed at one hospital. Dr. Klitzman's frank account from the perspective of a resident in training gives honest and open insight and opinions into the various treatment methods he learned to administer. He also explores his responses, perceptions and disagreements with these methods. However, the accounts are not overly-clinical, but are told from a very humane perspective.

Incredible insight into what it's like to be a psychiatrist! His style is entertaining and the stories are very interesting. You'll learn a little psychiatry, too.