Living in the Dead Zone: Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison: Understanding Borderline Personality Disorders [Paperback]

Gerald A. Faris (Author), Ralph M. Faris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2001

Psychologist Dr. Gerald Faris and sociologist Dr. Ralph Faris explain their findings about two icons of 1960s music and how each suffered from a complicated condition psychiatrically defined as "borderline personality disorder.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gerald A. Faris, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist with more than 25 years of hospital inpatient, private practice and supervisory experience and was an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Faris has drawn on his extensive clinical experience in presenting Janis and Jim as the extraordinary talented, intelligent and tormented individuals they were. Ralph M. Faris, Ph.D. has presented the sociological commentary and analysis of the era in which Janis and Jim lived. He is a professor of sociology and the director of the Honors Program at the Community College of Philadelphia, where he was recently won the National Lindback Foundation, Distinguished Teaching Award. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Prologue I know Janis Joplin. She's been in my office many times. I have seen her funky clothes, heard her cackling laugh, been the target of her good-natured wisecracks, experienced her unpredictable affect storms, and felt her agony. I have lamented the dismal, pitiable quality of her life, wrestled with her demons, and tried to help her with the most intractable of inner conflicts. And I've observed her relentless drive toward self-destruction. Jim Morrison, too, has been in my office. Like Janis, he was bleeding from self-inflicted wounds. Unlike Janis though, his demeanor was frequently abstruse and enigmatic, his ever present arrogance being the most prominent feature of his interactions with others. He uses words to confuse, attack, and diffuse; yet his demons, like Janis', were unmerciful and in the end did not permit him to escape. Finally he fell victim to them as he slid into the abyss. Perhaps I should say that I have seen such patients who bear a striking psychological resemblance to Janis and Jim. I have seen these patients in psychiatric hospitals and in my private practice. I have also supervised interns and clinicians who were treating them. Of course, these patients are not exactly like Janis or Jim. No person is ever identical to another - not even an identical twin. People have their own unique combination of traits apart from their pathology, as do my patients. But they are very similar to Janis and Jim in that they engage in the same terrible struggle with the emptiness of the dead zone. Overcome by constant misery and beset by a vast and dreadful emotional emptiness, these patients are unable to contain the forces that drive their rampant impulsivity. Lacking a stable sense of self and vulnerable to sudden emotional episodes, they desperately seek to sustain unsustainable relationships, as did Janis and Jim. Like them, they lead lives that are both intense and chaotic. One should not, however, misconstrue the analysis we provide in this book as an attempt to diminish the value of Janis and Jim's creativity nor of their contributions as performing artists. Neither should one take this work to be yet another expose of "real" lives of two rock stars. Janis and Jim should not and cannot be defined solely by their affliction; and it is certainly true that their lives, regrettably, have been greatly exploited. Still, we do wonder how they were able to bring so much energy, creativity and excitement to their music in spite of their affliction. Speculating in that direction might be intriguing, and we do have a few thoughts on the matter as we attempt to understand the psychological roots of their illnesses. We provide explanations of their behavior which are drawn from more recent developments in modern psychiatry and psychology - developments that we believe constitute the most comprehensive account of the disorder that ultimately took their lives. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Faris Ph D (August 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971654204
• ISBN-13: 978-0971654204
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,631,854 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Assumptions, November 17, 2006

By 

pixie - See all my reviews

This review is from: Living in the Dead Zone: Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison: Understanding Borderline Personality Disorders (Paperback)

The authors made an assumption about Jim before research was undertaken and I feel this coloured subsequent research. There's much more information available about Jim than was read by the authors who seem to have taken information that supports their point of view and ignored the rest. Jim's stage persona was a carefully orchestrated act based on a book called "Mass Hysteria and Crowd Control". He was playing a part. They were after all film graduates and film heavily influenced their stage presentations. Jim's poems were apocalyptic but that was his genre. The therapy sessions in the book are non-existent and are based on the authors' own preconceptions. Jim was extremely shy (said one Door and confirmed by another), there is some evidence he had a nervous breakdown, his home life was volatile and he drank. He couldn't keep up the act. He hated heroin and wouldn't take it deliberately. Where's the examination of the paramedics' reports to the Parisian police? Increasingly severe asthma attacks led to a prescription which he neglected to fill. A rock star's death by something as common as a heart attack caused by chronic asthma is not newsworthy. I'm disappointed in the lack of examination of all evidence before drawing a conclusion of BPD. The authors have analysed the myth, not the man.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful analysis of two deepyl troubled people, October 4, 2004

By 

Asa Hutch "ASH" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Living in the Dead Zone: Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison: Understanding Borderline Personality Disorders (Paperback)

I was unable to put this book down once I began reading the accounts offered by Faris and Faris. Their analysis of the borderline disorder was so disturbingly realistic in my own experience with my son that I thought they were writing to me. The therapy sessions they created with Janis and Jim were not only revealing but astonishing when you consider how good their music was.

This book is a most excellent read, filled with insights into the behavior of the borderline. And I truly did appreciate the sociological observations as well which contextualized the 1960s so well...and I do remember them as if it was yesterday.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally an explanation that makes sense!, December 14, 2004

By 

marc anthony - See all my reviews

This review is from: Living in the Dead Zone: Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison: Understanding Borderline Personality Disorders (Paperback)

Nowhere in the literature is there an analysis and narrative like this. Intense, compelling and riveting, the book explains why these two icons were so tragically self-destructive. In doing so,

they have illuminated and clarified for the public, the complex nature of the poorly understood borderline disorder. So many people can benefit from reading "Living in the Dead Zone". Bravo gentlemen!