Customer Reviews

Whispers: The Voices of Paranoia

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I found this book sad, illuminating and fascinating. The author takes you on a journey through several different delusions and gives very good background information and, at times, links this background to the present. It is a good opportunity to more fully understand the psychotic process and delusional system that tortures many mentally ill persons. As a psychiatric nurse, it gave me a deeper understanding as to what my patients are going through.

"Whispers: The Voices of Paranoia" is hands-down one of the best books that I have ever read. Dr. Ronald Siegel, Ph.D., a forensic psychopharmacologist, is an incredible writer and an even better story-teller. His journey into the paranoid mind is enlightening, vivid, and dangerous. As Dr. Siegel unfolds each case study, the reader is thrown into the suspense, analyzing and foreshadowing the devious behavioral manifestations of the paranoid mind. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in psychiatry, clinical neuropsychology, forensic psychology, or simply a good, non-fiction suspense trip.

You will finish this book in less than a week. I simply could not put it down and have since gone on to order all of Dr. Siegel's books.

I bought the book whispers while casually shopping in a local bookstore earlier this year. I was at that time, in a class taught by a recent graduate in psychiatry. She made the concepts of basic human behavior interesting and challenging. As most would suspect, the mental state and motivation of people is important in law. Dr. Siegel, in his analysis of criminally insane patients, is fascinating reading for anyone. His status as a resreach scientist allowed him to closely examine patients with mental abnormalities. I could not put the book down until it was completely finished. Dr. siegel presents his cases in terms that laymen can understand. The book is concise, contains some adventure, and is somewhat humorous at times. I will read it again undoubtedly. I would reccomend this book to anyone who has a friend or relative suffering from mental disorders or substance abuse issues. I would also reccomend law enforcement officers to read the book in order to understand the condition of mentally ill people they often encounter in their daily work. I am looking for Dr. Siegel's other books. whispers was a true delight.

Truth be told, I was actually several minutes late for work this week because I could not put the book down. For people who have an interest in psychology, this book is a must read. The chapters are broken up nicely into "cases" and each case discusses not only the patient (symptoms, history) but Siegel's process for diagnosing the patient. These stories are outstanding and the book is very well written and fluid.

I just had to throw in my two cents about how much I enjoyed this book. We had to get a book to read for English class. On a whim I bought this book, and could not set it down for the life of me! It's very interesting, I learned so much. And it's wonderfully written. All in all, it's wonderful

This book is so exciting that it is hard to believe it is non-fiction at times. The author covers many different cases with literary mastery usually reserved for fiction writers. There are stories of Hitler's brain in a jar, crazy cokehead hallucinations, psycho killers and more. This is not your standard acedemic (read boring) case study. I read this book from cover to cover in about a week, very hard to put down. It is written for the layman, but in a way that it is excessible to anyone (including professionals in the field). I would recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in abnormal psychology.

12 case studies, into 12 paranoid people. However, it doesn't take the most critical of thinkers to realize that Siegel may be embellishing the facts a little.

Don't take my word for it read the book, and you may find some of his stories to be a little far fetched. Like the last story of the book (Paranoid Express) in which Siegel locks himself in a train cart, snorts cocaine, pisses in his pants, and suffers blistering heat, for three days, just to experience what Mario N. goes through in his final days before being arrested. The unbelievable part, is that the police go along with Siegel's little experiment. They bring him food, change audio tapes, and deliver messages in the same way they did with Mario N. for three days. I don't think there is a federal government alive who would go to such great lengths to accommodate a professor who wanted to get coked up to prove that a murderer was paranoid at the time.

Don't get me wrong "Whispers" is an interesting read and a page turner, but they way Siegel ties his cases together like the game "six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon", is a little worrisome. You have this little nagging feeling in the back of your brain that says "if he went to such great lengths to embellish how the 12 paranoids were connected or what he did to understand their pain", then maybe he embellished their cases as well.

If that doesn't bother you, then by all means get the book.

The basis of a good researcher is neutrality and reserve, keeping a distance between themselves and the subjects whose lives they are studying. The book is disturbing and brings into question the motives and ethics of the author-researcher as he tried to recreate the details of a paranoid state that his subjects were experiencing.

Dr. Siegel is an accomplished and respected expert in abnormal psychiatry and biobehavioral science. However, this book is more than a little bit creepy and disturbing.

Paranoia starts with a whisper on the other side of the door. You stop and you hear movement and whispers on the other side of the door. Your hair stands on end.

This is the trigger. Everything else is amplification. The car that parks at midnight outside your window and the car doors opening and closing and the footsteps enter the building and go upstairs into the apartment directly above you!

And the footsteps above you follow you wherever you go. To the washroom, the kitchen, the living room. The footsteps above follow you.

In the morning you hear voices outside and you are certain that you will be jumped and killed by the people waiting for you to come out.

SO YOU CRINGE ON THE FLOOR BY THE WINDOW LISTENING TO THE VOICES AND THE FOOTSTEPS STALKING YOU, DARING YOU TO COME OUT!

AND YOU HIDE AND TREMBLE.

This is paranoia. This is what this book talks about. I have been there.