In April of 2016, Adam Smith found himself at rock bottom after a yearslong struggle with debilitating anxiety and searing physical pain. His search for the right diagnosis and treatment for his mental and physical pain lasted over six years and over a hundred different healthcare systems. He had to deal with the stigma of mental health issues, but ultimately learned that life isn't about finding a quick fix; it's about learning who you are and understanding...

Mental health problems affect one in five of us every year, and many of these conditions first affect people during their teenage years. Anxiety disorders, depression and other forms of mental illness are highly distressing and confusing for the person who experiences them, and for their families and friends too. Thankfully, there are effective treatments, so the sooner someone seeks help and receives a diagnosis, the sooner they can be helped and...

Doctors have struggled for centuries to define insanity--how do you diagnose it, how do you treat it, how do you even know what it is? In search of an answer, in the 1970s a Stanford psychologist named David Rosenhan and seven other people--sane, healthy, well-adjusted members of society--went undercover into asylums around America to test the legitimacy of psychiatry's labels. Forced to remain inside until they'd "proven" themselves sane, all eight...

We cannot know how to fix a problem until we understand its causes. But even for some of the most common mental health problems, specialists argue over whether the answers lie in the persons biology, their psychology or their circumstances. As a cognitive neuropsychiatrist, Anthony David brings together many fields of enquiry, from social and cognitive psychology to neurology. The key for each patient might be anything from a traumatic memory to a...

"If you have a body-focused repetitive behavior (BFRB)--such as hair pulling or skin picking--you may be reluctant to seek help due to feelings of shame or embarrassment. But you should know that you are not alone, and there are proven-effective strategies you can use right now to manage these behaviors and improve your life. This step-by-step guide will help you successfully overcome your BFRB"--

"A sweeping history of American psychiatry-from jails to hospitals to the lab to the analyst's couch-by the award-winning author of Madness in Civilization. For more than two hundred years, disturbances of the mind-the sorts of things that were once called "madness"-have been studied and treated by the medical profession. Mental illness, some insist, is a disease like any other, whose origins can be identified and from which one can be cured. But...

Psychiatry has come a long way since the days of chaining "lunatics" in cold cells and parading them as freakish marvels before a gaping public. But, as Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, reveals, the path to legitimacy for "the black sheep of medicine" has been anything but smooth. Here, Dr. Lieberman traces the field from its birth as a mystic pseudo-science through its adolescence as a cult of "shrinks" to its late blooming maturity--beginning after World...

"Patrick J. Kennedy, the former congressman and youngest child of Senator Ted Kennedy, details his personal and political battle with mental illness and addiction, exploring mental health care's history in the country alongside his and every family's private struggles. On May 5, 2006, the New York Times ran two stories, 'Patrick Kennedy Crashes Car into Capitol Barrier' and then, several hours later, 'Patrick Kennedy Says He'll Seek Help for Addiction.'...

"It's now known as New York City's Roosevelt Island. Originally called Blackwell's Island, it housed a lunatic asylum, prison, hospital, workhouse and almshouse in the 19th century. This book re-creates what daily life was like on the island, what politics shaped it, and what constituted therapy and charity in the nineteenth century"--