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Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person
by Anna Mehler Paperny
An absolutely essential read for any future or practicing clinician. I entered into this novel as an incoming clinical psychology graduate student on a mission to read more non-fiction first person accounts of mental illness in order to explore patient perspectives before becoming a therapist myself.
I feel like so much of my curriculum up until this point has been from the perspective of clinicians and academics: rarely in my studies am I presented a patient perspective unbiased by the lens of my own or other's clinical knowledge and instincts. To hear, first hand, Anna Paperny's humorous, honest, and often deeply harrowing account of her experience with debilitating depression has been critical in changing the way I conceptualize this illness. It is a bonus that Paperny is also a phenomenal journalist: she presents equanimously the academic perspective, the clinician perspective, the insurer perspective, the doubters of therapy and the believers, the psychiatrists and the alternative medicine proponents, all with the poignant undercurrent of perspective lent by her own lived experiences with disorder. This book should be taught and examined in graduate classes, if not a primer at least a a critical analysis of how North American society (Canadians and Americans alike) perceive and treat (or don't treat) those with severe chronic depression.
As a future therapist with my own lived experiences of mental illness, this book has also ignited a desire in me to view my experiences not as a hindrance but a clinical strength. Although I understand this disclosure may not be necessary or even desired in all clinical partnerships I encounter, for those for whom I think it will benefit I will not hesitate to offer the support that this information may provide.
I feel like so much of my curriculum up until this point has been from the perspective of clinicians and academics: rarely in my studies am I presented a patient perspective unbiased by the lens of my own or other's clinical knowledge and instincts. To hear, first hand, Anna Paperny's humorous, honest, and often deeply harrowing account of her experience with debilitating depression has been critical in changing the way I conceptualize this illness. It is a bonus that Paperny is also a phenomenal journalist: she presents equanimously the academic perspective, the clinician perspective, the insurer perspective, the doubters of therapy and the believers, the psychiatrists and the alternative medicine proponents, all with the poignant undercurrent of perspective lent by her own lived experiences with disorder. This book should be taught and examined in graduate classes, if not a primer at least a a critical analysis of how North American society (Canadians and Americans alike) perceive and treat (or don't treat) those with severe chronic depression.
As a future therapist with my own lived experiences of mental illness, this book has also ignited a desire in me to view my experiences not as a hindrance but a clinical strength. Although I understand this disclosure may not be necessary or even desired in all clinical partnerships I encounter, for those for whom I think it will benefit I will not hesitate to offer the support that this information may provide.