A) Summary
Dr. Kay precisely narrates the account of how she struggled with a hereditary mental illness. She
initiates her discussion by concentrating on her early life in a military household. Dr. Kay’s
nuclear family consisted of a sister, mother, brother, and father, and they lived in an Air force.
Her father’s and sister’s unstable moods unravel the roots of Jamison’s ailment. Therefore, the
journal revolves around the plights of manic-depressive victims.
Kay narrates her first attack in senior school in California. She pretended to be fine and kept it
secretive. The disease had immobilized her father at the moment which adversely affected the
strong fabrics of her family leaving her without a stable source for solace. Kay moved on to
pursue her undergraduate and graduate studies at UCLA. The strict schedule at undergraduate
escalates her tempers to incontrollable level thus adversely affecting her academics and personal
finances. Jamison is lucky to realize flexible structures and understanding mentors. Kay
experiences an uncontrollable manic –depressive attack. This forces her to begin taking drugs
and psychiatric help, which she had resisted for some years. Stigmatization instigates her to stop
the prescription. Consequently, the abandoned illness explodes, causing her to attempt suicide
severally.
Kay embarks on routine use of pills and psychiatric therapy, which steadily improve her mental
status. Aiming at saving the lives of people with psychosis, she deeply studies mood disorders.
After that, she enlightens both the psychologist and the overall community about the manic-
depressive illness. Finally, she elaborates on the tragic upshots of prescription defiance.
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B) Discussion of major issues Dr. Jamison addressed in light of course material and
readings.
Jamison addresses vital issues concerning the manic illness. She uses her personal experiences as
a patient and clinical knowledge to publicly explain the realities in the mental illness, hoping to
stir up an evolution in the cultural perception of mental illness. Additionally, she uses her poetry
skills to explain varied themes in a humorous mode vividly. Further down is a discussion of the
major issues that Dr. Jamison addressed in light of course material and readings.
Contrasting experience is an integral absurdity within the psychological disease since the cycle
of the disease exposes the patients not only to hostile effects but also some benefits. At the onset
of the disease, the patients experience some amounts of pleasures that are addictive. These
pleasures make patients reluctant to seek medication and psychiatric help. Jamison explains her
reluctance to start medication, lest it impedes her high mood. She proudly praises her manic
moods as being so conducive to productivity. Like cocaine addicts who risk their careers,
kinfolk, and lives for brief interludes of high energy and mood, Kay was willing to risk her life
and enjoy the short-lived manic pleasures. Understanding the manic duality of experience is key
while handling the victims to help them out of the endless cycle of rewards and adversities from
the malady.
The stigmatization of mentally-ill is another major issue in the memoir. Society views the
disorder as a mark of weakness. Thus, patients are embarrassed to seek both medicinal and
psychiatric assistance to eschew exposing their weakness to the public. For instance, Kay
believes that she is strong enough to handle her manic moods and that medical. Those who seek
help are weak. Stigmatization hindered her from getting medical help until when she had
completely lost her mind. Manic-depressive patients keep their conditions secretive as the
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community perceives it as shameful. The shame deters them from healing and also from
obtaining love and care from family units and friends.
Kay portrays self-acceptance surfaces as a vital theme in the journal. Patients are stuck in self-
denial, thus delaying them from seeking help. Kay struggles to accept her new mental status. She
refuses to seek help with the fear of losing her self-identity. Vast scientific knowledge about the
disorder did not push Kay to embrace medication. She waited for heights of her manic moods
when she is about to lose her marriage, job, and even life that Kay seeks help for her madness.
After a series of adversities from the malady, Kay accepts pharmaceutical and psychiatric help.
She unmasks herself out of hypocrisy and accepts who she is. This self-acceptance marks the
beginning of the healing process.
Discussion of role switch by Kay to cultivate respect for both mental patients and professionals
in mental health is evident. The disease forces Jamison to switch her role from doctor to patient,
which leaves her feeling out of place and degraded. The patient role enhances her future
interactions with patients; she learns to treat them with love, kindness, patience, and empathy.
Additionally, the role equips her to dispel the detrimental stigma that deters most patients from
healing. Most importantly, the disease was the driving force behind her research and study of the
mood.
Professionalism holds many implications for the fight of patients of psychological ailment. The
study of psychology offers access to relevant facts of the disease and promising care and cure.
Despite the vast knowledge of the syndrome and effective medications, Kay still struggled due to
fright of losing her career. Discontinuation mad students is the norm. Moreover, it appeared
inappropriate to attend to patients, yet you are mentally unstable. Otherwise, Jamison was able to
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go through her professional spheres with the malady frequently threatening to destroy all her
achievements.
Finally, contrasting experiences form the illness delays the medication of the patients as they opt
to enjoy the pleasures of the high mood while ignoring the underlying disasters of the illness. the
stigmatization of mental illness causes patients to be embarrassed. Hence deterring them from
seeking early curative help. The initial step of healing is self-acceptance. Jamison has had to
switch roles from Psychologist to psychotic patient. This role switching majorly empowered her
to save the lives of many manic-depressive patients. Being a professional psychologist, Kay was
able to describe her illness effectively and thus found better treatment. Eventually, she comes out
strongly to educate the public and patients about the illness and available cure.
C) Discussion of your thoughts and ideas associated with the book, e.g., whether and how
Dr. Jamison’s story changes your perception of mood disorders and or help to build your
knowledge of the disorders. You could include some or all of these ideas in your paper(this
list is not exhaustive)mental ill and stigma course/consequences of the illness, nature of
mood, episodes Dr. Jamison’s frequent use of word madness how it relates or may relate to
what you have learned about mood disorders, new questions that her memoir sparked
about mood disorders.
Concurrent with research, manic depressive is a major emotional sickness associated with
normal mood accompanied by high energy states. The elevated mood is known as mania or
hypomania. The condition is complex and stems from a combination of both genetic and non-
genetic factors. The severity of the symptoms varies with the patients. Some people have a few
symptoms, while others have many that impair their ability to work and lead a normal life
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(Goodwin, Frederick & Jamison, 2007). Below is a discussion of symptoms, consequences, cure,
and medication side effects of the manic-depressive disease.
The symptoms of manic-depressive illness tend to intensify with the gravity of the episode.
Patients feel abnormally energetic, happy, or irritable, as illustrated by Jamison’s ability to do a
lot of work while in a high mood than normal state of mind. During the manic phase, patients
have a reduction in the necessity to sleep and make impulsive decisions that have dire
consequences. Individuals often have unclear rushing thoughts (Malhi et al.,2016). They tend to
speak too much and so fast as depicted from Kay’s friends complaining that she was talking too
fast. During the depressive phase, patients have an overwhelming urge to cry, develop a negative
outlook of life, and feel hopeless. Suicidal thoughts are a norm in this phase as the patients
withdraw from the public and social cycles. The illness causes the patient to lose pleasure in
routine undertakings such as being hygienic and also hobbies as they revert to drug addiction.
These symptoms yield disastrous outcomes, as elaborated below.
Manic-depressive malaise have unpleasant effects on the patient and his general cycle. First, the
psychotics are stigmatized which leads to loss of self-esteem and their general productivity.
Impulsive buying associated with the manic phase leads to deterioration of the financial status of
the patients. Discrimination by key sectors such as insurance companies and employment
opportunities. Fear of losing jobs while sick or even denial of certification of practice in various
fields such as psychology. Victims of manic-depressive ill struggle with broken marriages and
families (Yang & Kaite, 2018). Maintaining friendships is hard due to intolerable responses
during the ailment. The reduction of the above predicaments is thus necessary by the use of
drugs and counseling.
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The best cure for manic-depressive illness is medications and psychotherapy. Consistency in
taking the drugs is principal for restorative progression. A combination of a typical antipsychotic
and antidepressant is active in treating the insanity. Additionally, patients can use mood
stabilizers such as lithium to treat the madness. Psychotherapy is also essential in teaching
patients how to change negative thoughts and the significance of medical dose compliance
(Demontis et al., 2017). Household based therapies entail educating the family members on
coping strategies and how to handle the patients.
Finally, paying attention to the warning signals of the disease is key for the early treatment of the
disease to avoid the aftermath of severe cases. Taking medications as prescribed is important in
ensuring smooth healing. Self-education about the disease, its symptoms and treatment is
essential to the patient. General public education about the disease can promote the love and care
extended towards the patients. Patients have to tolerate the side effects of the medications such as
insomnia, tremors, weight gain, nausea, impaired vision and hearing. Researchers are
progressively investigation potential drugs that are specific in their actions.
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REFERENCES
Goodwin, F. K., & Jamison, K. R. (2007). Manic-depressive illness: bipolar disorders and
recurrent depression (Vol. 1). Oxford University Press.
Malhi, G. S., Fritz, K., Allwang, C., Burston, N., Cocks, C., Devlin, J., & Meagher, L. (2016).
Are manic symptoms that ‘dip’into depression the essence of mixed features?. Journal of
affective disorders, 192, 104-108.
Yang, K., & Pronin, E. (2018). Consequences of Thought Speed. In Advances in Experimental
Social Psychology (Vol. 57, pp. 167-222). Academic Press.
Demontis, F., Serra, F., & Serra, G. (2017). Antidepressant-induced dopamine receptor
dysregulation: A valid animal model of manic-depressive illness. Current
neuropharmacology, 15(3), 417-423.