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The Mind and the Moon: My Brother’s Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches
Maybe someday
41
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
38/100Critics
44/100Scholars
Author:
Daniel Bergner
Publisher:
Ecco
Date:
May 17, 2022
In the early 1960s, JFK declared that science would take us to the moon. He also declared that science would make the "remote reaches of the mind accessible" and cure psychiatric illness with breakthrough medications. We were walking on the moon within the decade. But today, psychiatric cures continue to elude usâas does the mind itself. Why is it that we still don't understand how the mind works? What is the difference between the mind and the brain? And given all that we still don't know, how can we make insightful, transformative choices about our psychiatric conditions?
What The Reviewers Say
A profound and powerful work of essential reporting.
Bergner discusses how mental illnesses are perceived, diagnosed, and treated, as well as how all of those elements have shifted over time. Glimpses into the history of psychiatric care are presented alongside the real-life stories of people who have been on the receiving end of that care—and often quite harmfully so. Bergner pushes readers to question our society’s demand to pathologize mental illness as the sole path towards destigmatizing it. Rather, he effectively argues for the need to view mental health through varied lenses, involving sociopolitical factors and centering the perspectives of those most impacted by these issues..
With an unsparing eye and novelist’s flair for storytelling...Bergner explores 'the chasm between physiology and consciousness... between what we’re made of and who we are' in the treatment of mental illness.
Personal and studied.
