John's New Book, Part 2

I finished reading John McManamy's new book, Living Well with Depression and Bipolar Disorder, last night. I stand by everything I said in yesterday's post on the book. It's damn good and I hope people buy it. How he managed to pull off all the brain science he describes in the book is beyond me, but it's well done. All in all, though, it's a real world book, maybe not a life manual per se, but pretty damn close. It is more of a user's manual and an excellent resource, one that has 10 times the validity of the doctor-authored books out there because it was written by one of us.

At one point, John notes that psychiatry is still much more of an art than a science. True. And if it is an art, then we are still at the fingerpainting stage.

BTW, I noted on this blog last December (shit, I've been at this long enough to have a history with myself) that many in the mental health advocacy and patient world long for the one great voice on mental illness. My sense then, and now, is that we'll actually end up with many voices, principally because experiences with mental illnesses and mental illnesses are so diverse. There is no one Truth out there, the way there is in the cancer patient world. But John is definetely one of our voices. Now go pre-order his book before it comes out next week.