Mental Illness

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Gail Steketee and Randy Frost, Mariner Books, 2011.

My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind by Scott Stossel, Vintage, 2015.

The World's Strongest Librarian: A Book Lover's Adventures by Josh Hanagarne, Penguin Publishing Group, 2014.

The Man Who Couldn't Stop: OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought by David Adam, Picador, 2016.

Madness in the Streets: How Psychiatry and the Law Abandoned the Mentally Ill  by Rael Jean Isaac and Virginia C. Armat, Treatment Advocacy Center, 2000.  Critics of Psychiatry This books describes the variety of forces that convinced society to empty state mental hospitals in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. It began with a movement against seeing mental illness as a medical problem and continued with an effort by misguided civil libertarians to increase patient

The Imp of the Mind: Exploring the Silent Epidemic of Obsessive Bad Thoughts  by Lee Baer, Dutton, 2001.  Summary The author, Lee Baer, discusses something he names “The Imp of the Perverse,” after a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. It is a little devil in our mind, which makes us think of doing things that are wrong. For most people, such bad thoughts are fleeting and easily ignored. But some people cannot stop worrying about doing terrible things. Some examples of obsessive

Understanding Body Dysmorphic Disorder: An Essential Guide  by Katharine A. Phillips, Oxford University Press, 2009.  Body Dysmorphic Disorder There exists a common mental illness that is not widely known. It is called Body Dysmorphic Disorder. People suffering from it spend several hours a day worrying about their physical appearance, even though they look average. Sufferers rarely believe that they are suffering from a mental illness. Almost always, they believe that they h