Stranger Than Fiction

Stranger Than Fiction: When Our Minds Betray Us is a
spellbinding invitation into the world of the human mind that will change
our perceptions of mental illness forever. Despite the growing body of
scientific discoveries into the nature of the human mind, the stigma
attached to mental illness remains deeply entrenched in the general public's
consciousness, the product of inaccurate information and centuries of
mystery.

In a simple conversational style, two distinguished
clinicians, Drs. Marc and Jacqueline Feldman, discuss the complexities of
mental disorders and their treatment. Using the metaphor of the lie of the
mind, a disorder in which a person's thinking becomes unintentionally
distorted, the authors approach mental illness from the perspective that
these disorders are merely extreme variations of universally shared
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Stranger Than Fiction removes the
artificial division separating the mentally ill from the general public and
demystifies symptoms that often seem bizarre.

On this journey through
the human psyche, the Feldmans use vivid, enlightening, and often poignant
cases from their own professional experience that dramatically illustrate
how psychiatrists help patients liberate themselves from the mental
conditions that imprison them. The reader is invited into therapy sessions
and hospital rooms and receives an insider's view of the difficulties that
each therapist confronts when treating disturbed patients. The authors show
how clinical decisions often rely more on educated hunches than medical
certainties and reveal that the practice of psychiatry is as much an art as
it is a science.

After finishing this unforgettable book, readers will
better understand the true nature of mental illness and witness the joy that
even the smallest triumph produces in patients and caregivers alike.