Welcome to My Country [Paperback]

Lauren Slater (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 14, 1997

Lauren Slater, a brilliant writer who is a young therapist, takes us on a mesmerizing personal and professional journey in this remarkable memoir about her work with mental and emotional illness. The territory of the mind and of madness can seem a foreign, even frightening place-until you read Welcome to My Country.

Writing in a powerful and original voice, Lauren Slater closes the distance between "us" and "them," transporting us into the country of Lenny, Moxi, Oscar, and Marie. She lets us watch as she interacts with and strives to understand patients suffering from mental and emotional distress-the schizophrenic, the depressed, the suicidal. As the young psychologist responds to, reflects on, and re-creates her interactions with the inner realities of the dispossessed, she moves us to a deeper understanding of the complexities of the human mind and spirit. And then, in a stunning final chapter, the psychologist confronts herself, when she is asked to treat a young woman, bulimic and suicidal, who is on the same ward where Slater herself was once such a patient.

Like An Unquiet Mind, Listening to Prozac and Girl, Interrupted, Welcome to My Country is a beautifully written, captivating, and revealing book, an unusual personal and professional memoir that brings us closer to understanding ourselves, one another, and the human condition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A psychologist whose empathy with her patients is tempered by her own bout of treated mental disability takes readers into encounters with her dysfunctional clients. With disarming candor, she allows her voice to mingle with those of her patients?schizophrenics, borderline personalities, bulimics and others?in an inner-city residential unit. Slater traces the early years of her career, expressing her belief in the transforming power of love, and she shares with readers the almost imperceptible changes in her patients' feelings that her intimacy with them brings about. As she interviews a patient in the very place where she herself was once incarcerated, the author ponders anew the mystery of why she "managed somehow to leave behind at least for now what looks like wreckage, and shape something solid from life," while others have not. This debut book opens a vista on emotional and mental distress. First serial to Harper's; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

For many, the world of the schizophrenic, the suicidal, or the depressed is foreign and unpleasant. The apparent gap between ourselves and the sufferer often seems insurmountable. That is not the case, however, for psychologist and award-winning author Slater. Telling her patients' stories of emotional and physical suffering allows her to connect with the essence of the human spirit. According to Slater, the connections necessary for human life must be achieved through language. Those connections occur on a variety of levels and make use of the entire range of human communicative skills. She describes how one patient's embrace of a flower in a garden speaks volumes about his state of being, or how a woman's daily struggle with depression teaches us about having faith in what tomorrow brings. Along the way Slater delivers some harsh judgments about the failures of many contemporary therapies. In these essays the author's tender and poetic treatment of her patients' struggles is both heartwarming and wrenching. Highly recommended for all public libraries.
David R. Johnson, Fayetteville P.L., Ark.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; 1st Anchor Books ed edition (July 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385487398
• ISBN-13: 978-0385487399
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #293,488 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 6 stories of mental health patients, October 4, 2000

By 

Maria from London (London UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Welcome to My Country (Paperback)

"I have learned that the only way to enter another's life is to find the vector points where my self & another self meet...There is no way, I believe, to do the work of therapy, which is, when all is said & done, the work of relationship, without finding your self in the patient & the patient's self in you. In this way, rifts within & between might be sealed, & the languages of our separate lives might come to share syllables, sentences, whole themes that bind us together".

This comes from the preface of "Welcome to my country". And, if the whole message of the book had to be put in one paragraph, this is the one. Never in this book does Lauren Slater write from a position of power, of "me versus them". Through her own recovery, through battling her own problems (see "Three Spheres") she knows what it is to reach out & touch that dark part within ourselves: the fact that she keeps the access open to that part of herself, the "sick" part, open to be used for understanding & relating to patients...this shows a great sensitivity, is not very common, & makes the book interesting & different.

Apart from this, the book contains 6 stories of therapy, the first in a group setting, the rest on an individual, one on one basis. All take place in the boston mental health clinic where the author worked, early in her practice. The stories are not the most original in the world, what makes the book original is SLater's personality & her writing, which often comes close to literature. I'm looking forward to more of her work.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Psychology Book I've Read, December 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Welcome to My Country (Paperback)

This book is one of the best books on mental health problems I have ever read. Each chapter introduces and describes a different type of mental illness (depression, personality disorder, etc.) through anecdotes from the author's clients and treatment situations. The author has a beautiful writing style, and the descriptions of the clients and their problems make them understandable not just intellectually but emotionally by the reader in a way that few books about mental health problems ever do, as few authors write this well or can empathize with the patients as Ms. Slater does. One can actually understand and feel what the patient does; this is not just a dry clinical book, which is frequently the case with topics such as this. Aside from understanding and feeling with the patients, it also helps one appreciate life and the human mind and soul better. I wish the author had written more books; I only hope she does in the future, as I will read them all.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Easy, Enjoyable Read, November 19, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Boca Raton, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Welcome to My Country (Paperback)

Slater recalls her treatment of some of her most memorable clients. From her work at a group home for chronic schizophrenic males to an offensive, aggressive and violent man diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, Slater discusses how she reached out to these clients and tried to create a positive change in their lives. When she is asked to counsel a girl at the same psychiatric hospital where Slater was once a patient herself, memories come flooding back, along with the fear that she will be recognized and her career will be ruined. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in psychology, mental disorders or the therapy process.