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melodyseestrees's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
1.75
This book can be summed up as "I learned a symptom checklist, went out psycho-spotting, and you can too!" He spends the entire book armchair diagnosing people, especially those for whom he wonders if the psychologists got it wrong (all of which were men). He talks about a few other individuals but they get a few paragraphs in comparison to the men. He interviewed more Scientologists than psychologists and I found that a bit troubling. There is very little to this book besides interviews and biased conclusions.
He trivializes symptoms in the DSM even though it is accepted that these symptoms are to have significant impact on the individual's life.
I was expecting a more nuanced discussion of the failings of the system. Perhaps how it isn't really built for anyone who is not male or Caucasian.
The attempts at humor fell flat and actively detracted whatever points the author was dancing around. The author was also not very focused on his own points and jumped all over the place at times. This felt like directionless info-dump.
If you are familiar with this author you might enjoy this book. I did not.
He trivializes symptoms in the DSM even though it is accepted that these symptoms are to have significant impact on the individual's life.
I was expecting a more nuanced discussion of the failings of the system. Perhaps how it isn't really built for anyone who is not male or Caucasian.
The attempts at humor fell flat and actively detracted whatever points the author was dancing around. The author was also not very focused on his own points and jumped all over the place at times. This felt like directionless info-dump.
If you are familiar with this author you might enjoy this book. I did not.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Mental illness, and Violence
Moderate: Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Suicide
Minor: Classism, Forced institutionalization, Bullying, Eating disorder, Excrement, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Transphobia, Ableism, Confinement, Gaslighting, Rape, Self harm, and Cursing
Many of the content warnings are a sentence or two in passing. Not a whole lot is detailed.
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