Brief Book Reviews: September 2025

Popular Books Relevant to Mental Health

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Kay Redfield Jamison: Vintage, 1996

224 pages; $10 (paperback)

Reviewed by Edmund S. Higgins, MD

In the comments section on Amazon, some people will write, “This book should be required reading.” I hate those comments. However, it is difficult to find words strong enough to praise Kay Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind without evoking similar hyperbole. Let’s try this a different way: Patients with bipolar disorder and their families should read this book.

This is Jamison’s memoir of living with bipolar disorder and an exceptional story. It’s all there: the onset of manias and depressions. her struggle with lithium, the failure to accept she has an illness, and the benefits when she finally does. Jamison gives us insight into the residual effects of successful treatment. She pines for the euphoria of the manic episodes but is ashamed of what she has done, and labors to pay off the depts from delusional spending sprees. It is a marvelous story that fills in dry diagnostic criteria.

It is also a uniquely hopeful psychiatric story. We read so much about the failings of the mental health system. In this regard, it is wonderful to read a positive story about the struggle to live, even thrive, with a mood disorder. Jamison’s writing is beautiful, sharply edited, and has the narrative flow of an engaging novel. Apparently, in some authoritarian psychiatric programs, it is actually required reading.

Nothing Was the Same: A Memoir

Kay Redfield Jamison; Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2009

207 pages; $14 (paperback)

Reviewed by Edmund S. Higgins, MD

Although Jamison responded to lithium, she was not in remission and did not trust her brain.“My mind was suspect,” she writes. In an instinctive act to guard against the destabilizing effects of passion, she avoided love. She ratcheted back her dreams and settled in with her career and friends. Then she met Richard. To a large extent, this story is a follow-up to An Unquiet Mind.

Richard Watt, MD, was a dedicated physician who studied, taught, and practiced psychiatry. At one time or another, he was trained or employed at some of the top institutions around the country. Nothing Was the Same is the love story of Watt and Jamison that melts the heart. Jamison describes, with her usual brilliant style, a relationship that sounds similar to the Greek philosopher’s description of love—finding one’s other half. It is also a window into a remarkably successful pairing when one partner has a severe mood disorder.

Despite their profound love, it was not all Disney. Although the worst of her illness was now controlled, she still had episodes of light mania followed by highly irritable periods of depression. There were times she threw ceramic objects. Watt was also not without faults. He hid a vial of an antipsychotic medication in his office, just in case. He could get enraged and withdraw into himself. Jamison spends much of the book describing conversations which softened the conflicts. Perhaps their most charming qualities were their innate curiosities and shared ability to find humor in their emotional conflicts. They could weather the storms without poisoning the well.

Another fascinating feature of the story is Watt’s severe dyslexia. Reading was exceedingly difficult, “his spelling was dreadful and his handwriting worse.” Verbal tasks were a nightmare.Even as an adult, he would have patient’s read back each prescription to be sure they were written correctly. Despite this handicap, he published over 800 scientific papers and 6 books.His story is a testament to the capacity of the brain to forge a work-around for a serious deficit.

Dr Higgins is an affiliate associate professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina.