Heavy Light: A Journey Through Madness, Mania and Healing

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She uses a therapy based on dialog with the patient and trials seem to indicate it could have positive results and be much cheaper than traditional methods for treating mental health issues. Overall quite a nicely written account but lacked as much reflection and balance as I would have liked.

Heavy Light: A Journey Through Madness, Mania and Healing Heavy Light: A Journey Through Madness, Mania and Healing

The status and modus operandi of consultant psychiatrists perhaps another matter - there are some hints of Kafka, of Catch-22 here. Throwing ever more medication at problems which clearly stem from grief, lack of connection and fear can, and does, create more problems than it solves. His delusions had him picking a hole in his ceiling, wandering around naked in Wales, and abandoning his car for fear of being targeted by bad actors.We are all the authors of our own fantasies; mine was predictably religious and his involved covert operations of great significance, to better the world.

Heavy Light: A Journey Through Madness, Mania and Healing - Goodreads Heavy Light: A Journey Through Madness, Mania and Healing -

pretty much immediately removes all the delusions (other, arguably, than that he is perfectly fine) During the later section of the book where he rightly questions many of our models and practices, he doesn't seem to reflect at all on this occurrence. Only not 5 as, in the end ( although he does acknowledge this) it’s easier to stop medication, no matter how hard, if you live a middle class life with enough money to make choices in a beautiful area doing a difficult, but satisfying, job. And he had significantly less concerns about using cannabis prior to his illness which is also a mind altering substance!Many people have to make the best of their limited life and so choose to live half a life rather than none. I would have liked to see a little more of the personal in the aftermath of the episode, perhaps in touching base with other patients from the ward, but the exploration of the systems around mental illness was very well-considered. On a vertiginous “high,” Clare thinks Kylie Minogue is going to marry him, that everywhere is bugged (actually, not that delusional) and eventually, as part of a false flag operation the radio told him to do, ends up crashing his car into a dam, being found later by the police wandering naked. Brilliant examination of mental illness, detention under the mental health act and the serious problems with current medication and treatment programmes in the UK.

Book review: Heavy Light, by Horatio Clare - The Scotsman Book review: Heavy Light, by Horatio Clare - The Scotsman

In particular, the moment when he is in the gallery, when he feels like everyone around him knows he is from the psychiatric hospital, that everyone is hyperaware of him. After a lifetime of ups and downs, Horatio Clare was committed to hospital under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act. Sadly it does not represent many of the people I see in my work as a Clinical Psychologist, but his story speaks to the potential healing powers of community, kindness, nature and careful listening. I can't remember reading a memoir before about somebody going mad, so that felt fresh and novel, and the section in the mental hospital is equally readable.A fantastic book that is really an eye opening education into mental health services in modern day UK. Clare's description of his "breakdown" or manic episode which resulted in him being Sectioned under the Mental Health Act is heartbreakingly authentic and I feel his bravery in exposing not only his experience but that of his wife/his children/his friends/his family. He was offered three drugs while sectioned, with the appropriate required reading about side-effects and possible impacts. But to then go on to detail his own journey of healing and recovery and to then question why it is not more widely available for others is inspirational.

Heavy or Light? | Jack Hartmann Measurement Song Is It Heavy or Light? | Jack Hartmann Measurement Song

It begins with a family skiing holiday, and Clare is paranoid; rightly so as he is trying to take his personal stash of cannabis through customs. This is a wonderful book, part memoir (the pace and writing of periods of mania are astoundingly good), part exploration of the problematic nature of the treatment of mental illness.

His account of his treatment by psychiatrists is highly critical, while much more praise is given to others in mental health services and especially the police. To details in the depth he has detailed of his own personal experiences of the highs and lows of bipolar is something unique. Having finished the book, I now completely understand and can appreciate why he wrote it in the way he did. Accretion speaks louder than words,” she sings, flatly, banging the gavel on the trial of our species. It is such an unusual ordeal for most of us to comprehend, that shifting of reality and otherness of existing.