Strangers to Ourselves presents five case studies of people struggling to cope with mental illness. Aviv is most interested in how people's understanding of their condition affects their sense of identity and the course of their lives. How is your experience different if you attribute your distress to a chemical imbalance versus a spiritual crisis?
The stories identify various potential sources of mental anguish, such as repressed trauma, chemical imbalance, societal pressures, or religious experiences, and shows how they offer at best a partial "explanation" of the person's behavior. However, individuals typically latch on to one or another of these factors to incorporate into their personal identity, and their choice impacts the type of treatment they receive. For example, Naomi comes to believe that "the ruling elite" were targeting undesirable elements of society such as her and her (Black) children, and since racist elements do in fact exist, doctors initially diagnosed her as righteously angry rather than paranoid and psychotic.
The topic is fascinating and important, and Aviv clearly empathizes with her subjects. However, her journalistic writing style is at odds with her desire to present people's experience with mental illness from the inside. She describes her subjects' behavior and reasoning in a flat "just the facts" manner and seems reluctant to make explicit conclusions (perhaps because explicit diagnoses are what cause problems in the case studies). I would have appreciated a more imaginative account of each person's "reasoning" coupled with a more forceful set of arguments for a phenomenological approach to what William James calls the "unclassified residuum" of their experience.
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