Poets on Prozac: Mental Illness, Treatment, and the Creative Process
by: Richard M. Berlin MD
Hardcover: 200 pages
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press; 1 edition (April 30, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780801888397
ISBN-13: 9780801888397
ASIN: 0801888395
Book Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Beginning with the premise that "poets are among the most fearless of writers when it comes to self-revelation," poet and psychiatrist Berlin (How JFK Killed My Father) examines the ambiguous, age-old relationship between writing and madness by: asking leading contemporary poets to discuss psychiatric treatment and their work. The result is a fascinating collection of 16 essays, as insightful as they are compulsively readable. Each is honest and sharply written, covering a range of issues (depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychosis, substance abuse or, in acutely deadpan Andrew Hudgins's case, "tics, twitches, allergies, tooth-grinding, acid reflux, migraines.. and shingles") along with treatment methods, incorporating personal anecdotes and excerpts from poems and journals. Though they dwell in the darker corners of the creative process-frustration, anxiety, isolation-each contributor carries a measure of the joy Gwyneth Lewis felt at age seven, when she wrote her first poem: "This activity made me happier than anything I knew." It's a sentiment that both haunts and inspires: after 12 years without writing, medical doctor Jack Coulehan found in the "healing power of language" the key to lifting lifelong chronic anxiety. Medication is a trickier subject. Though it's an undisputable help, the difficulty in finding the right "cocktail" of pills and the array of side effects-for Chase Twitchell it turns off his "metaphor-making faculty" like a spigot-make it a painful challenge. Anyone affected by: mental illness or intrigued by: the question of its role in the arts should find this volume absorbing.
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Review
"A fascinating collection of 16 essays, as insightful as they are compulsively readable."
(Publishers Weekly (starred review))
"All agree that the sick brain often spells catastrophe for the creative mind."
(New York Times)
"The book shows that good poets also write vigorous, engaging prose. Richard Berlin has done a marvelous job of showing us how ordinary poets are; the selected poets have shown us that mental illness shares with other experiences a capacity to reveal our humanity."
(Metapsychology)
"At once instructive and poignant, Poets on Prozac constitutes an important addition to the literature on creativity and mental illness.. An illuminating read both for mental health professionals who work with creative people and for artists who are contemplating treatment options."
(New England Journal of Medicine)
"This book belongs on the shelves of all therapists who treat women and men who immerse themselves in creative writing or any other fine art. Dr. Berlin's pithy introduction provides a useful summary of the relationship between creativity and emotional disorder. The 16 essays and the poetic excerpts that bolster them share the virtues of being heartfelt, accessible, and brief. They can be read by: highly literate women and men, even those in the midst of an emotional maelstrom."
(American Journal of Psychiatry)
"Each essayist (and the book as a whole) certainly has an audience, most faithfully in poets."
(Roxanna Font Bellevue Literary Review)
"This collection of brilliant essays does not resolve the relative contribution that medication (ranging from SSRIs to orthomolecular treatment) makes to the resolution of a creative person's fallow periods and blocks. Like the creative process itself, the picture that emerges is idiosyncratic and, perhaps, understood better as an appreciation than as analysis."
(Choice)
"The book's claim to uniqueness lies chiefly in the character of the authors and the poetry with which they express their feelings."
(Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease)
"In providing these poets with a voice in prose, Richard M. Berlin, himself both a healer and an artist, provides telling insights into both mental illness and the creative process."
(Harvey Fenigsohn Lamar Soutter Library Book Reviews)
"Endlessly fascinating."
(Brooke Allen Hudson Review)
About the Author
Richard M. Berlin, M.D., is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts, a psychiatrist in private practice, and a published poet. He writes a monthly poetry column for Psychiatric Times and is the author of How JFK Killed My Father, a collection of poems about illness and the healing arts.
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