Review: An Unquiet Mind

I wrote this book review for an extra credit task in my problem identification class at the University of Rochester. I have included my review below.

Review: An Unquiet Mind

I listened to An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison for the extra credit task. This memoir details the struggles Redfield Jamison had leading up to and after receiving a Bipolar diagnosis. What makes the story more compelling, I believe, is that Redfield Jamison herself obtained her PhD in clinical psychology and acted as an academic researcher on Bipolar, so we gain additional insight from her education mixed with her personal experience. Redfield Jamison begins the story by telling of her youth, including her upbringing in what seemed to be a privileged upper-class military family. Her family appears to have been part of more traditional circles emphasizing conservative values. Yet, her parents were unusually supportive of Redfield Jamison's pursuit of education and career, highlighting modern feminist values within this more patriarchal circle.

Her father was a driven scientist who also appeared to have mood fluctuations, which Redfield Jamison considers as potentially being an origin of her later diagnosis. Redfield Jamison describes one particular incident in her youth, where she saw a pilot whose plane was about to crash over a children's playground. The pilot decided, instead of ejecting to save his life, to divert the plane to crash and die on unoccupied grounds in order to potentially save the lives of children. Redfield Jamison describes this as a pivotal moment in her development that instilled a strong idea of duty. Redfield Jamison describes the onset of her Bipolar symptoms as she enters early adulthood. Unlike her high moods in adolescence, she enters periods of mania for the first time in college, where she describes having a feeling of limitless energy, grand ideas, exuberant confidence, and going on spending sprees. 

This initial manic state was followed by crushing depression. Redfield Jamison sought treatment for her depression, and psychiatrists told her she had Bipolar, yet she did not embrace the diagnosis. Doctors prescribed her Lithium, which she took intermittently, as she did not enjoy the side effects. In one particularly deep depressive episode, she attempted to take her own life by overdosing on Lithium. Redfield Jamison describes how her family barely saved her and how painful the recuperation after this overdose was. At this point, Redfield Jamison begins to take her diagnosis seriously, accepts a belief that she has Bipolar illness, and commits to taking medication. Throughout this period, Redfield Jamison was also married; her marriage ended in divorce due to the challenges of her illness.

Redfield Jamison continues her memoir by describing her academic career, her romantic relationships, and her continued battle with Bipolar. A key relationship for her was a British professor whom she met while establishing her academic career as a psychologist. The professor appeared to be a passionate and intense man. Sadly, he passed away from a heart attack, which left Redfield Jamison devastated. After this, Redfield Jamison appeared to stabilize somewhat in her career, and in her medication, she met and fell in love with Richard Wyatt, a psychiatrist, who had an even more calming force on her. Overall, we end the story with Redfield Jamison firm in her belief that Bipolar is a medical illness, that Lithium is the proper treatment for it, and that through this, she has finally achieved a kind of peace in her life. She says that due to Lithium, she believes her Bipolar was worthwhile and would have preferred to have it than not.

I wonder, whilst Redfield Jamsison may not have been conscious of it, could be possible that biopsychosocial forces contributed to her illness? Unconscious psychological forces such as Redfield Jamison's alcohol, her sexual pursuits, which are detailed in the book, also seem to be a big focus and drive in her life. She also seems steeped in social hierarchy, status, and knowledge, specifically medical knowledge. She runs in circles of large egos, and she too may have an addictive style pursuit of social status and medical knowledge.

Would Freudian theory Redfield failed the Oedipus task and identifies with her father ? Is she animus-possessed? Are there gender dynamics at play here? We also see the unique position Redfield Jamison was placed in socially. Redfield Jamison is part of a upper-class system that at the time possibly called for a women's place being to be the home, yet Redfield was in a family system that uniquely valued a feminist idealism of providing Redfield Jamison with an education and encouraging her to pursue a high-powered career. This conflict may have created psychic tension for her.

Overall, I’m curious what would have happened if Redfield rejected the social system that she was enmeshed in. If she stopped drinking alcohol and pursuing sex, academic achievement, and social status and adopted a simpler life.