Jill Prouty

On motherhood, mental illness, and the importance of memory
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  • Tag: book reviews

    • How to Change Your Mind

      Posted at 4:43 am by jillprouty7, on June 6, 2018

      pollan

      Imagine being able break from from the destructive thinking that characterizes major depression and other mental illnesses. A brain re-set in a single therapy session with a lasting power of up to six months. In How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (Penguin, 2018), Michael Pollan likens the depressed human brain as being a snow covered mountain with well-worn ski tracks on it. After a while, the tracks deepen and the skier is trapped skiing the same slope over and over again. What if a psychedelic “trip” produced by ingesting psilocybin mushrooms or LSD could flatten the entire slope, causing the overused tracks to disappear, freeing the skier to create new paths? Research into the therapy-guided use of these substances is showing promise for sufferers of mental illness, including cases where patients have been resistant to traditional treatments including the use of SSRI’s. FDA approval for the therapeutic use of several psychedelic substances could come as early as 2021. This is exciting news for sufferers of psychic pain as well as their families.

      The key to the success of this kind of treatment, according to Pollan as well as researchers, is that the substance is taken in the presence of a trained therapist who serves as a guide during the experience. Another key feature is the “mystical experience” many patients report afterward that causes them to feel differently about themselves and the world around them.

      grey small mushroom on brown soil

      Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

      In his book, Pollan tries LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, and the crystallized venom of the Sonoran Desert toad. He has what qualifies as a mystical experience after inhaling the vapor of “the toad,” leading him to ask the question: Was what he experienced real or just a drug-induced hallucination?

      Does it matter?

      Posted in blog, books, drug therapies | 3 Comments | Tagged book reviews, depression, major depression, mental health, mental illness, psilocybin, psychedelic drug therapy, psychedelics
    • Book Review: Imagine Me Gone

      Posted at 5:22 am by jillprouty7, on April 23, 2018

      imagineLovers of literature know that great fiction always reveals truth. It enables us to see ourselves and our experiences, both good and bad, within the world at large without fear of personal exposure. When I read the publisher’s summary of Adam Haslett’s Imagine Me Gone (Little, Brown, 2016), I recognized a family like much like my own and knew it was a book I had to read.

      Imagine Me Gone explores the devastating toll of mental illness on both the sufferers and the loved ones who care for them. The opening scene is a flashback to a death, hinting at a suicide. The feeling of dread made me put the book down for a couple of days until I felt ready to forge on. I’m glad I did.

      Patriarch John suffers from bouts of major depression, something his girlfriend Margaret only becomes aware of when he is hospitalized during their engagement. She decides to stay the course and marry him anyway. Their marriage produces three children: Michael, Celia, and Alec, who each learn to cope in their own way with their father’s mood disorder and the emotional and financial strain it puts on their family. The eldest, Michael, is plagued by severe anxiety as well, which intensifies as he enters adulthood.

      Haslett tells the story in alternating points of view by all five members of the family. It isn’t an easy read, but his writing is as real as it gets when describing the family’s anguish. At its core, Imagine Me Gone considers the lasting effects of mental illness and suicide on a family as they attempt to move past it and find meaning in their lives.

      Imagine Me Gone was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and long-listed for the National Book Award and the Andrew Carnegie Medal.

      Posted in blog, books | 0 Comments | Tagged book reviews, depression, family, mental illness, suicide
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