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A review by rrthering
A Mind of Your Own: The Truth about Depression and How Women Can Heal Their Bodies to Reclaim Their Lives by Kelly Brogan, Kristin Loberg
5.0
It's important to know my context before sharing why my true rating is ~3/5 stars.
I came to Kelly's work via a podcast interview in 2023, and I had to hear her speak more. At that point, I'd already had big transformations in how I view health paradigms, over a decade of healing IBS through lifestyle changes (not being helped by the medical system), then underwent a 5-year dark-night-of-the-soul spiritual journey (atheist to deeply spiritual), during which I learned the importance of the body, somatics, trauma (from teacher Irene Lyon, highly recommend). I stopped resonating with the term "mental illness" on my own, when I learned all about the nervous system and felt in my body how stored survival stress transforms as it's healed, resolving symptoms previously classified as mental illness.
Anyway, I was drawn to someone who also pursues Truth, and allows herself to become and change as new information is received and transformation happens. (She references a lot that 'I used to be an activist, for about 10 years I was fighting Big Pharma & medical-agricultural-industrial complex.' but since stepping out of that victim triangle, that's no longer where she directs her energy. So much nuance and context needed here -- check out her interviews if interested.) I'd probably listened to over 40 hours of Kelly speaking in interviews and on her own podcast during the year. She is articulate and nuanced, embodied, willing to be wrong, courageous to look at her shadow parts, etc.
I knew she'd written some books, and this is the first one that I've read. As a huge fan of Kelly's work, the book fell short for me. Honestly, if someone were interested in exploring this topic, I would send them to this single interview she did with Teal Swan over this book: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/61-the-truth-about-mental-illness-with-teal-swan/id1663947298?i=1000655534670
How did the book fall short? I wish she had begun with her personal story! All the time and money and energy at medical school and practicing, only to be stunned at its shortcomings when she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. If you haven't been through such a paradigm shift experientially, where the floor crumbles, where you begin to question everything you thought you'd known, where you begin to take responsibility and learn the power we each hold -- it's a big jump. It happens too quickly in the book, and she only shares the story many chapters in.
I imagine if I had read this 10, 15 years ago. The statements are too punchy and bold. Too fast. Too many references to studies (lots of ppl don't understand why/how there are so many studies that have conflicting conclusions, the $$ behind it, how data can be manipulated, etc.). I would have included much more of her personal story, and more client stories... have an arc that shows how we've been duped and. I've been much more moved by seeing folks go through the tedious moments of a paradigm-shift, sometimes taking 10-15 years until it all clicks. (Like in Sarah Ramey's phenomenal memoir "The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness," which I highly recommend to all humans!)
I'm grateful to have the added context, knowing that Kelly wrote this book as a very different person, in a different context, with different lenses than who she is today. I'm very curious to read Kelly's two more recent books, to see how the tone changes as she writes with different folks and with different lenses. She's a phenomenal speaker, though; go listen to her on podcasts if you want to dip into these topics.
I came to Kelly's work via a podcast interview in 2023, and I had to hear her speak more. At that point, I'd already had big transformations in how I view health paradigms, over a decade of healing IBS through lifestyle changes (not being helped by the medical system), then underwent a 5-year dark-night-of-the-soul spiritual journey (atheist to deeply spiritual), during which I learned the importance of the body, somatics, trauma (from teacher Irene Lyon, highly recommend). I stopped resonating with the term "mental illness" on my own, when I learned all about the nervous system and felt in my body how stored survival stress transforms as it's healed, resolving symptoms previously classified as mental illness.
Anyway, I was drawn to someone who also pursues Truth, and allows herself to become and change as new information is received and transformation happens. (She references a lot that 'I used to be an activist, for about 10 years I was fighting Big Pharma & medical-agricultural-industrial complex.' but since stepping out of that victim triangle, that's no longer where she directs her energy. So much nuance and context needed here -- check out her interviews if interested.) I'd probably listened to over 40 hours of Kelly speaking in interviews and on her own podcast during the year. She is articulate and nuanced, embodied, willing to be wrong, courageous to look at her shadow parts, etc.
I knew she'd written some books, and this is the first one that I've read. As a huge fan of Kelly's work, the book fell short for me. Honestly, if someone were interested in exploring this topic, I would send them to this single interview she did with Teal Swan over this book: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/61-the-truth-about-mental-illness-with-teal-swan/id1663947298?i=1000655534670
How did the book fall short? I wish she had begun with her personal story! All the time and money and energy at medical school and practicing, only to be stunned at its shortcomings when she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. If you haven't been through such a paradigm shift experientially, where the floor crumbles, where you begin to question everything you thought you'd known, where you begin to take responsibility and learn the power we each hold -- it's a big jump. It happens too quickly in the book, and she only shares the story many chapters in.
I imagine if I had read this 10, 15 years ago. The statements are too punchy and bold. Too fast. Too many references to studies (lots of ppl don't understand why/how there are so many studies that have conflicting conclusions, the $$ behind it, how data can be manipulated, etc.). I would have included much more of her personal story, and more client stories... have an arc that shows how we've been duped and. I've been much more moved by seeing folks go through the tedious moments of a paradigm-shift, sometimes taking 10-15 years until it all clicks. (Like in Sarah Ramey's phenomenal memoir "The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness," which I highly recommend to all humans!)
I'm grateful to have the added context, knowing that Kelly wrote this book as a very different person, in a different context, with different lenses than who she is today. I'm very curious to read Kelly's two more recent books, to see how the tone changes as she writes with different folks and with different lenses. She's a phenomenal speaker, though; go listen to her on podcasts if you want to dip into these topics.