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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
fast-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Equal parts fascinating and horrifying. Was this written for professionals in his field? The details about patients he worked with were profoundly interesting, but I didn't have the faintest clue what he was on about half the time - his musings were often incoherent. Maybe if I had studied psychology this would have meant more to me. Either way, the human brain is an amazing thing.
I've been meaning to read this book for 30 years, and I waiting too long. Neurology is a rapidly expanding and shifting world, and many of the concepts discussed in Sacks' book have either refined or shifted. For example, research on Tourette's, TBI, and Parkinson's has progressed a lot,
Nevertheless, it was interesting to read the case studies. Sacks does a great job foregrounding the human being in the case study. He focuses on relationships, self-perception, feelings, and meaning. True, he still brought a lens of scientific theory (which has transformed in the intervening decades) to how he parses the cases, but the humanity of each person shines through.
Nevertheless, it was interesting to read the case studies. Sacks does a great job foregrounding the human being in the case study. He focuses on relationships, self-perception, feelings, and meaning. True, he still brought a lens of scientific theory (which has transformed in the intervening decades) to how he parses the cases, but the humanity of each person shines through.
For a beginning psychology student, aspects of this book were a little over my head, though I understood the concepts being presented. Part of the drawback to listening to this as an audiobook was that I didn't always have the ability to whip out a dictionary (or app), make a note of or Google the things I needed more information on or didn't understand. Even without complete understanding of the clinical terms, the book is well written and entertaining enough to keep me interested. I enjoyed the stories of abnormal psych case studies and found them engaging, human, and differences aside, relatable. I look forward to revisiting it when I have a better understanding of the technical, clinical aspects of these illnesses because I'm sure I'll get more out of it. One of the things that disturbed me, but not enough to put it aside, were the common use of words that are currently more pejorative in nature being used to describe the mentally ill. I wrote about that more in my blog, though. Take a peek when you have a chance.
challenging
informative
medium-paced
I flew through the start but then it felt a bit repetitive and it used too much subject specific terminology that I’m unfamiliar with.
challenging
informative
slow-paced