Fires in the Dark: Healing the Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison

Fires in the Dark: Healing the Unquiet Mind Reviews

• 
  Jeanne

  Fires in the Dark: Healing the Unquiet Mind is at least the third of Kay Redfield Jamison's books that I've read; her memoir, An Unquiet Mind, and Night Falls Fast were the other two, although neither since I've been on GR.
  
  Jamison's previous books have largely focused on the experience and consequences, good and ill, of bipolar disorder and suicide. Fires in the Dark is largely, "a love song to psychotherapy," a phrase that she would have used to subtitle this book (Schwartz,
  2023).
  
  Her description of psychotherapy is like that of a courageous journey with a fearless guide. Jamison – and the healers she quoted – describe this journey as often difficult and sometimes paradoxical: "to treat, even to cure, is not always to heal" (p. 3). Strong healers are curious, a refuge, at ease with ambiguity, comfortable with complexity, They help their clients (others prefer to talk about them as "patients") to feel safe, to make "intolerable memories tolerable" (p. 60), and hold "an unshakeable belief in … the ability to get well, compete, and make a difference" (p. 160). To heal is to recognize what was lost and to reshape that loss into something good. It often has a spiritual basis.
  
  Jamison referred to a number of healers, most of whom were active in WWI. Almost all were white males, although she quoted some war nurses, as well as some fictional characters (e.g., T. H. White's Merlyn and P. L. Travers' Mary Poppins). She especially focused on the trauma of war.
  
  Clearly, early 20th century is where Jamison's reading heart is, but as psychotherapy is a diverse field, focusing her reading there limits the kind of conclusions she could draw about psychotherapy, which she sees as generally long-term and insight-oriented, rather than emphasizing solution-focused treatments, Ericksonian hypnosis, or family therapy treatments.
  
  Despite this limitation, Fires in the Dark is an engaging set of musings, although its path is not always clear. You may need to be comfortable with not always knowing where you're going.
• 
  Bren

  I was soo excited for this book, but from what I've learned with Jamison is that her books are history lessons. This book did not discuss anything about healing the unquiet mind. If anything there was a brief: "It will be hard, but have hope" line and that was it. The rest as a history lesson on WWII and the doctors around that time. I think if it was better researched on how to heal and presented as a study (like the title implies), it would have been a much better book. Half of the time I was reading/listening I just didn't understand why some parts of the book were in there.
• 
  Alexis Michael

  This was not what I expected. When reading about the book, my impression was it would discuss how therapy and the therapeutic relationship leads to healing. Instead, it is more focused on a literary exploration of the lives of a couple doctors in history, particularly WWI.
• 
  Jessica

  I have no idea what the thesis of this book is, and I read the entire thing. There were some beautifully eloquent passages, lots of poetry, lots of history of World War I, but what was the main idea? Couldn’t tell you.
• 
  Elizabeth Ritzman

  There were three words missing in the subtitle. “The History of”
  There’s a lot of beauty packed in here but I was expecting something more Illuminative of our current pathways.
• 
  Laurie

  I wanted to know more about the psychology behind it all—the research and findings. There was just so much back story on the different doctors, researchers, specific people historically that didn’t really add to what the book totes itself to be. It’s more of a series of history lessons —mini biographies, if you will— that occasionally mention something about how people react psychologically to a given circumstance. I ended up skimming much of the last part of the book.
• 
  Jasmine

  A much deeper read than anticipated. Rather than discussing the semantics of psychotherapy, it seems like Jamison intends to give an expansive cultural history of treatment and healing of mental suffering through sharing the stories of healers, artists, and soldiers. The book starts with discussing the healing process of the mind to the role of writers and artists to the influence of companionship and ends with the necessity for knowledge.
  
  That said, it was hard to discern the central thesis of Jamison’s writing. There were many touching scenes that were hard to put together to form the overarching picture of her work.
• 
  Leigh Williams

  Such a beautifully written book ❤️
  "We all look in our different ways to find the way back from pain, to find the way to peace and redemption. We look for purpose, for the rock that is higher than us. We look to healers for courage and the way forward. We look to them for convoy and toughness, for knowledge and humanity. We seek the balm of Gilead that makes the wounded whole." -
  III The Healing Arts - Hero, Artist, and Storyteller -
  Ch. 9 They Looked To Their Songs
• 
  Scott J Pearson

  Kay Redfield Jamison is a well-known psychotherapist at Johns Hopkins who herself famously suffers from bipolar disorder. In 1996, she wrote eloquently about her journey in An Unquiet Mind. In this book, she posits the idea that to be most effective, healers – the doctors, counselors, and leaders – need to be healed themselves. To support her argument, she provides life narratives of many such eminent people, with a focus on the early-to-mid twentieth century.
  
  Jamison uses historical stories to illustrate that many of the best healers are sufferers, too. She explores the phenomenon known as “shell shock” in World War I. At the time, soldiers experiencing this were sent away from the front to heal. Strangely, those who are healed were immediately sent back to the front to fight and often die. At the time, physicians and nurses saw this inherent contradiction in their work. Their task from the military enabled more dreary death.
  
  Many of these discursions serve as meditations, almost like short homilies in a memorial service. They are not overtly directional but instead meander, much like a psychotherapeutic encounter. The psychiatrist WHR Rivers plays a leading role in this discourse, and other well-known topics include Paul Robeson, Notre Dame Cathedral, Siegfried Sassoon, ancient Greek medicine, and William Osler. In the epilogue, Jamison says that she started out to write a book about healing, but she ended up writing a book about healers.
  
  This work will disappoint readers who like a structured, orderly writing style that engages contemporary debates. It’s well-researched and interesting, but it’s neither controversial nor trending. It’s more about circumspectly peering into others’ private lives to find how they find healing. Her thesis that those healed make the best healers is echoed throughout the centuries, but is strangely forgotten in modern medical training, with all its focus on objectivity and evidence. In practice, healing remains as much of an art as a science, particularly in fields like psychiatry and psychotherapy. Jamison, a provider and receiver of life-healing aid, reminds us of this thematic strand in history. I think her contribution here contains an idea that deserves to be heard and reflected upon.
  
  
• 
  Sarah

  I really liked An Unquiet Mind but I could not figure out where this book was going. There was no detectable thread weaving it together and I don’t even know how to explain what it was about. I guess I don’t even really *know* what it was about. The horrors of trench warfare? The power of children’s literature? The history of a relatively unknown early psychotherapist? A black singer dealing with racism in America? I couldn’t figure out the point or the theme.
• 
  Maryann Jorissen

  I noticed a few disconnects while reading this book:
  
  The title indicates a book covering psychology and psychiatry spanned over the years. Instead it was a medley of legendary men that were gifted in the art of counseling and who provided comfort to soldiers during WWI. In fact most of the time/setting was during the First World War. The title and summary fail to point to how much of the focus is WWI.
  Several gifted men were described over the pages. But even with these individual descriptions much of content deviated to events specific to the war itself. In doing so, content seemed to vacillate among the thoughts of general groups involved in the war and the works of renowned healers.
  The premise seems obscure. All the pieces—great doctors and healers, the war, shell shock, individual poets, groups of men/women working in the war effort, and theories of healing—-were poorly organized, making this book a puzzling read. Did the author really cover what she meant to cover? Or did she get lost in a jumble of subjects that failed to intersect?
  My final impression was one of disappointment.
• 
  Elizabeth Renter

  I have enjoyed a lot of Jamison's work, but this one was tough. More meandering than her other books, and it didn't deliver on the broad promise of the title. She seemed to go down rabbit holes only mildly related to the thesis, for pages upon pages. Further, the overwhelming majority of the discussion was spent specifically on people WWI, and as such overwhelmingly European men. At times I had to remind myself what the book was supposed to be about, as I'd find myself reading about something seemingly unrelated for 10 pages at a time.
  My final disappointment with the book: Kindle showed 488 total pages. Imagine my disappointment when the book actually ended at page 324. The final ~160 pgs were footnotes. I kept expecting for her to focus the topic in coming pages, until I ran out of pages.
  All of this said, she still has a way with words, and I found myself highlighting phrases that I really enjoyed. Unlike her other books, however, this one will not be re-read.
• 
  Natalia Weissfeld

  Fires in the Dark: Healing the Unquiet Mind By Kay Redfield Jamison is a fantastic book about mental health, what makes a good healer and the incredibly curative power of words and imagination. In this book the author explores mental suffering throughout history. From the concept of the wounded healer in the mythic Greek centaur, Chiron,
  
  to PTSD during wartime and the story of doctors and nurses in the battlefield. From the use of psilocybin in indigenous religious ceremonies to induce mystical and transcendent states and to alter mood to psychotherapy in all its forms and shapes; the book is fascinating. If you are interested in mental health from a historical standpoint, then you will find this book very enriching.
• 
  Felicia Ho

  A surprisingly literary read.
  
  Started this thinking it would be similar to books calling for better mental health care in the states, especially in the wake of Covid, but instead dove straight into a book about the history of healers (Osler, Rivers) and poets (Sassoon, Owen). The writing is beautiful and the messages elegantly put — especially on such challenging and difficult topics as war and shell shock.
  
  Main takeaways are hard to pull out, however, so I wish there was more closure on ideas rather than description of stories alone. A thoroughly enjoyable read in the end, but not necessarily what I expected. Now intrigued to dig deeper into medical history.
• 
  Kaylee Dupree

  This was not ultimately what I thought I would be listening to and at times hard times attend to. I read the first one she wrote years ago, and thought this would be a follow up or more treatment focused being the first was a memoir. It turned out to be stories about individuals from the war, doctors, and insight on the ultimate healers she has encountered throughout her life and her own healing journey. She admits that the book is not what she set out for it to be in the epilogue, but that she is pleased with it. She feels that understanding powerful healers helps to implement healing within one's self and patients.
• 
  Morgan Wilcock

  "'The minds of these patients were fragmented,' [A.J. Brock] wrote of his shell-shocked patients. 'Their memories held such painful content that they tended to let the past slip altogether,' They lost their bearings and their contact with the world."
  
  This book, which opens with and hones in throughout on discussions of WWI trauma patients, reminded me so much of myself that I'm terrified that sexual trauma can be comparable to war trauma and what's at stake for me is literally that bad. Say that's just not true. At least that brings me out of me-myself-I mode a little bit; yes, I've lost my contact with the world. I've forgotten sequences from my past.
  
  What I appreciate about this book -- and it's the first one I've read by this just really incredible person whose name my uncle introduced to me, Kay Redfield Jameson -- is its emphasis on the intimate connection between madness and creativity, and how with the right or wrong supervision the best artists, poets and singers (like Paul Robeson), can either triumph or suffer unfathomably. Soldiers too. I'm at a stage in my treatment when I feel like I'm running all the time from some sort of patriarchy that governs most medicine; each time I feel like I follow some sort of lead toward being healed and I feel hope that I'll be given really good treatment, some trap door opens and I fall right through it. I hope that someday I can even hold a candle to writing about trauma -- one's own or just anyone's -- that is this brilliant.
• 
  Maggie

  This is a thoughtful and interesting book, although not linear. It’s nicely researched, and nearly poetic in its writing. The foundation of healing healers first shouldn’t be as novel as it is, and I loved exploring the concept and its history.
  Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for allowing access to a digital ARC.
• 
  Michael Weinraub

  I'm glad I learned about the Osler and Rivers, and the descriptions of how a skilled therapist can transform a person's beliefs about themself and their hope for healing was inspirational. There was a bit of a ramble here among characters but the dive into the minds of men and women in healing was interesting.
• 
  Christina Marta

  I'll just share this phrase:
  
  One holds tight to a rock during danger, then breaks loose to take on the sea.
  
  Read Sassoon, Graves, and Wilfred Owen. Listen to Paul Robeson, in any of the 20 langages he sang in.
  
  Read T.H. White's "The Once and Future King."
  
  Healing hurts, but keep trying.
  
  
• 
  Claire Skidmore

  I've read just about all of Kay Redfield Jamison's books. Some of her books are a bit clinical. My favorite of hers was "An Unquiet Mind". She autographed a copy of "An Unquiet Mind" for me when she was on a book tour at The Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver, Colorado. I enjoyed meeting her in person. I gave that book four stars and would read it again.
• 
  Arrie

  4 stars for info. I'll be honest at first I was like--this is gonna be such a DRY book. It picked up. So 4 stars for pure information. However 3 stars because it still lacked that energy to draw you in. If that's important to you it might be a DNF. If info and facts and deep dives work and you don't always need to be wowed or touched but are a bit of a super learner. This books meets that bar.
• 
  Henry

  This book is all over the place. It shouldn't be one book but rather split up into at least two or more, with one billed as a series of essays about random people she wanted to write about. Very poor editing on the part of the publisher.
• 
  Kelevilin Kimathi

  Fires in the dark
  
  This is a interesting book which shows the demons great men and not so great have to contend with. War in particular the first world war seems to have left an indelible scar on many who lived in that time.