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

~ (Author), Ralph M. Faris (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

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.

About the Author

Gerald A. & Ralph M. Faris

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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 (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,155,260 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 14 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

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.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Assumptions, November 17, 2006

By	pixie - See all my reviews

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.

8 of 11 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

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!