# Recommend some nonfiction dealing with psychology **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 26, 2007, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835 "2007-11-26T20:40:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![myskepticsight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2007, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/1 "2007-11-26T20:40:35Z")
Semester break is coming up, and I need some new books to read. My favorite genre of books is either memoirs, dealing with people with psychological disorders, addiction, etc. or just books on psychology topics in general. I’m more interested in abnormal (disorders) and behavioral neuroscience, but will read anything on the topic of psychology that sounds interesting and is factually sound. There are a lot of books out there, but books are expensive so I can’t afford to buy a bunch of crappy books (and the library never seems to have hardly any books I want). Help anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2007, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/2 "2007-11-26T21:41:55Z")
Is it safe to assume you’re familiar with Oliver Sacks, author of _The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat_ and other books? Case studies of people in psychotherapy can be entertaining if done well, and I remember enjoying a couple of books along those lines by George Weinberg: [Nearer to the Heart’s Desire](http://www.amazon.com/Nearer-Hearts-Desire-Tales-Psychotherapy/dp/0802114717/ref=ed_oe_h) and [The Taboo Scarf](http://www.amazon.com/Taboo-Scarf-Other-Tales/dp/0312181892/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196112760&sr=1-5) ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/3 "2007-11-27T01:05:43Z")
All first person narratives (or thinly veiled autobiographical fiction) except where noted. **Schizophrenic spectrum disorders** The Eden Express (I’m not convinced this wouldn’t be considered bipolar disorder these days) I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (I’m not convinced there isn’t a huge PTSD component in this) The Day the Voices Stopped Not the Thing I Was Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl **Bipolar disorder** An Unquiet Mind **Traumatic brain injury** Where is the Mango Princess? **Parent with schizophrenia forms a significant part of the early narrative** Never Have Your Dog Stuffed You Ain’t Got No Easter Clothes **Autism spectrum disorders** Send in the Idiots Nobody Nowhere Somebody Somewhere Exiting Nirvana Not Even Wrong Reasonable People **PTSD** First They Killed My Father Lucky Child (both include a lot of war trauma and sequelae, but it’s not discussed overtly or analyzed) **Major depression** Darkness Visible Where the Roots Reach for Water Girl, Interrupted The Bell Jar **Borderline personality disorder** Prozac Nation (she’d say she was depressed) **Alcoholism/alcohol in the family** The Glass Castle Dry **General titles** The Professor and the Madman (story of participation in writing the Oxford English Dictionary by a man in an asylum) Gracefully Insane (“biography” of Mclean Hospital) The Lobotomist (biography of Walter Freeman) Another Day in the Frontal Lobe (training memoir by a neurosurgeon) ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/4 "2007-11-27T01:14:48Z")
[QUOTE=Shoshana] **Borderline personality disorder** Prozac Nation (she’d say she was depressed) [/QUOTE] That’s an interesting notation. I looked up the article on the book in Wikipedia and they merely note her as probably having the atypical depression subtype. Any particular reason for this categorization? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/5 "2007-11-27T01:21:06Z")
_Descartes’ Error_. Sound neuropsychological research about the relationship between mind and body. I haven’t read it yet, that’s my husband’s reccomendation (he is a psychology freak.) Most of the psych books I read fall into the category of social psychology. One book you might find interesting that bases its premise on a lot of research from different fields, from neuropsych to linguistics, is _Moral Minds_ by Marc Hauser. It is about the acquisition of morality as a natural phenomenon that develops as a result of genetic predisposition and environmental factors. The basic idea is that people develop moral codes in the same way folks develop language – from a specific specialized function in the brain that recognizes morality ‘‘patterns’’ in early childhood development. The science is absolutely fascinating. I’ve really not been able to look at ethics in the same way since reading it. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/6 "2007-11-27T01:27:06Z")
> [@](#): > > That’s an interesting notation. I looked up the article on the book in Wikipedia and they merely note her as probably having the atypical depression subtype. Any particular reason for this categorization? Clinical supposition on my part. I could certainly be wrong, but I get a very powerful Axis II vibe throughout, despite her self-report. Is she depressed? Clearly. What makes it “atypical”? That depression isn’t the only thing going on. What else is going on? My opinion is, a pervasive pattern of difficulty regulating interpersonal relationships, plus a lot of self-loathing, plus substance abuse. ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/7 "2007-11-27T01:33:01Z")
[Head Games](http://www.ConcussionCrisis.com) by Chris Nowinski - a great book on concussion in athletes - written by a former Harvard football player, turned professional wrestler, who had to cut his wrestling career short due to multiple concussions, so he did what any good Harvard grad would do, he researched the topic and wrote a book on it. [http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Nazi-Personality-Psychological-Investigation/dp/0805818987](http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Nazi-Personality-Psychological-Investigation/dp/0805818987) - A really interesting book about how a US Psychologist and Psychiatrist tested all the Nazi war criminals while in captivity in Nuremburg, how the files were lost and found, and the results of blind analysis of their Rorschach test data. A very readable book that is more of a page-turner than you might expect. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/8 "2007-11-27T01:39:03Z")
[QUOTE=Shoshana] Clinical supposition on my part. I could certainly be wrong, but I get a very powerful Axis II vibe throughout, despite her self-report. Is she depressed? Clearly. What makes it “atypical”? That depression isn’t the only thing going on. What else is going on? My opinion is, a pervasive pattern of difficulty regulating interpersonal relationships, plus a lot of self-loathing, plus substance abuse. [/QUOTE] Thanks for the explanation; that’s very interesting. I remember the controversy and praise at the time the book was released, but didn’t read it and hadn’t followed her troubles since then (which I read about when I just now followed the link to her own personal Wiki page). Something like that certainly would explain more about her difficulties. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/9 "2007-11-27T01:50:31Z")
When I give my students excerpts and ask for their diagnostic impressions (as well as what they’d ask or want to know about to confirm or reject their impression), they’re all over the place with her. When that happens to a clinical treatment team, it often means there’s an Axis II disorder at play. Reasonable people may differ–as I said, it’s an impression, not a diagnosis from afar. Similarly, Mark Vonnegut’s Eden Express could describe schizoaffective disorder, but in today’s diagnostic categories, I’d want a good differential diagnosis for bipolar disorder. Of course, no diagnosis is going to have any descriptive power or utility until we had a chance to interview and interact with him without the large amounts of psychedelics and pot he was using at the time. ---
**Author:** ![myskepticsight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/10 "2007-11-27T05:31:43Z")
Thanks for the recommendations. I’ve had my eye on **Unquiet Mind** for awhile, and my biopsych prof mentioned **Descartes’ Error** today as well. I’ll have to do some Amazoning tomorrow to check out the rest. I’ve read **Prozac Nation** before, and in my non-expertise I can buy the borderline thing. I’ve also read **The Bell Jar** and seen the film adaptation of **Girl, Interrupted**. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/11 "2007-11-27T05:33:37Z")
_An Unquiet Mind_ is wonderful. I highly recommend it. ---
**Author:** ![Stauderhorse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Stauderhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stauderhorse)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/12 "2007-11-27T14:46:11Z")
I’ll second _The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat_. Fascinating read. ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/13 "2007-11-27T17:42:22Z")
Temple Grandin’s _Animals in Translation_ is very interesting. She talks a lot about herself and her autism in it as well a provided interesting theories about how animals perceive the world. ---
**Author:** ![myskepticsight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/14 "2007-11-28T02:56:14Z")
[QUOTE=cher3] Temple Grandin’s _Animals in Translation_ is very interesting. She talks a lot about herself and her autism in it as well a provided interesting theories about how animals perceive the world. [/QUOTE] I’ve heard of her before, hasn’t she written another book? ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/15 "2007-11-28T03:03:24Z")
[QUOTE=myskepticsight] I’ve heard of her before, hasn’t she written another book? [/QUOTE] She has written several books, and she was the subject of the title article in Oliver Sacks’ _An Anthropologist on Mars_. ---
**Author:** ![Cuckoorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cuckoorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cuckoorex)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/16 "2007-11-28T03:10:38Z")
More neuropsychology than psychology, but I highly recommend V.S. Ramachandran’s _Phantoms in the Brain_. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/17 "2007-11-28T03:51:55Z")
Temple Grandin wrote _Thinking in Pictures: And Other Reports from My Life with Autism, Emergence: Labeled Autistic, Developing Talents, Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals,_ and _Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior._ ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/18 "2007-11-28T03:58:51Z")
I can’t really recommend the tome, as I am only a few pages in. But I saw it and picked it up. I suppose it’s relevant to this thread. [The Cry for Myth by Rollo May](http://www.amazon.com/Cry-Myth-Rollo-May/dp/0385306857) I don’t like the first few pages, because they strike a chord. It seems like an interesting read…meh, might love it, might hate it. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/19 "2007-11-28T05:12:37Z")
[The Fifty-Minute Hour: A Collection of True Psychoanalytic Tales](http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Minute-Hour-Collection-Psychoanalytic-Tales/dp/1892746247/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196224506&sr=1-1), by Robert Lindner. First published in 1956, the book is particularly notable for the case discussed in the chapter, “The Jet-Propelled Couch.” During WWII, Lindner was asked to treat a scientist assigned to a highly important, top-secret military project (which Lindner afterwards identifies as the Manhattan Project). When questioned, the scientist revealed that for years he had been secretly living a double life; he was able to project himself telepathically to another solar system, where he was the leader of an interstellar civilization. The man’s accounts of this other life were so vivid and compelling that Lindsner himself was drawn into the fantasy, to the point where he unconsciously began collaborating with his patient. Though Lindsner never identified the patient except by the pseudonym “Kirk Allen,” it has been suggested that the scientist may have been based on Cordwainer Smith, who worked for U.S. Army Intelligence during WWII and became a noted science fiction author after the war. ---
**Author:** ![ThirdCultureKid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@ThirdCultureKid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThirdCultureKid)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835/20 "2007-11-28T05:40:48Z")
Hands-down, unquestionably _The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime_. It’s written from the perspecive of an autistic boy, with the author having spent years working with autists. It’s a very _different_ book, but I have yet to meet someone who didn’t love it. I also bought it for my friend who’s studying experimental psychology, and she flipped over it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-nonfiction-dealing-with-psychology/427835.md?page=2)