Do No Harm, but for psychiatrists

August 21, 2016 5:28 AM

I'm looking for writing that deals with the day-to-day business of being a psychiatrist. Think Do No Harm by Henry Marsh, but by/about a psychiatrist instead of a neurosurgeon.

Format can be article, book, podcast, whatever. Fiction is also fine, although I'm most interested in factual accounts. The closest thing I've found so far to what I'm looking for was Falling Into the Fire by Christine Montross, if that helps.

posted by anaximander to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

I have this on my nightstand, have heard good things about How Can I help, a week in the life of a psychiatrist
posted by saucysault at 6:35 AM on August 21, 2016

Best answer: Scott Alexanders writings about being a psychiatry resident probably fit the bill. Look in the medical section of the top posts page on his blog.
posted by pharm at 6:40 AM on August 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz - it has the same mixture of anecdote, clinical insight and personal emotion that Do No Harm had (in my opinion).
posted by featherboa at 7:43 AM on August 21, 2016

Irving Yalom has written a lot of books about his practice. He is qualified as a psychiatrist, but focuses on psychotherapy in the books that I've read.
posted by entropyiswinning at 11:32 AM on August 21, 2016

Probably some older stuff by Dale Carnegie with self-help titles, or a book I read a long while back called The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck might help.
posted by omgkinky at 1:42 PM on August 21, 2016

The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz

Hmm, I didn't really like that one. FYI op, grosz is a psychoanalyst of a Freudian bent and whilst the book was easy to read, I found his treatments unsatisfying and typically wrapped up in a suspiciously neat kind of "just so" story. I found it lacked the rigor and introspection of Marsh's excellent book.
posted by smoke at 1:55 PM on August 21, 2016

+1 for Yalom's writings. Love's Executioner is a story about (mild spoiler!) a case in which the therapist decides to "kill" his client's delusions about an imaginary lover.

Very relevant to the philosophical questions regarding "do no harm."
posted by soylent00FF00 at 6:08 PM on August 21, 2016

May I also recommend An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison - the focus is certainly more on what it's like to be bipolar, but it's also a memoir written by a psychiatrist and it's a great book.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 10:08 PM on August 21, 2016 [1 favorite]