Shadow Syndromes: The Mild Forms of Major Mental Disorders That Sabotage Us

by John J. Ratey

Book Overview

Are you living under a shadow? Do you or someone you love suffer from: Chronic sadness Obsessiveness Outbursts of anger The inability to finish tasks Acute anxiety Disabling discomfort in social... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553379593
• ISBN13: 9780553379594
• Release Date: June 1998
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Length: 402 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Will halp to save money on therapy.

Excellent for understanding your partner and yourself little bit more.

Cultivate your shadow hypochondriasis

Shadows Syndromes is a worthy read, in that it does a good job of highlighting the major disconnect between diagnostic categories and reality. While the DSM model has its uses (research and billing being the only two I can think of right now), it also serves to reify the notion that mental illnesses are precise, discreet disorders. Any one with an ounce of clinic experience will tell you that real cases don't fit neatly into categories. The diagnostic questions sometimes help think through and organize the presenting concerns, signs and symptoms. But often the debate over whether someone is suffering from a pure mood disorder versus PTSD versus character pathology serves as a distraction. Or , another classic example: spinning wheels arguing whether a patient is an addict with psychiatric symptoms secondary to drug abuse or are they actually someone with a primary psychiatric diagnosis who is using substances to self-medicate their mental illness. It's a meaningless exercise based on an overly simplistic model. But that one does matter because insurance companies consider one of those scenarios worth paying to treat and the other worthy only of their contempt. In reality, just like any other organ in the body, the brain mediates a number of functions. It is responsible for mood regulation, memory, sustaining attention, shifting attention, interpreting social cues, integrating sensory information, regulating motivation of all manner of behaviors, and impulse control, to name a few. We all have various strengths and weaknesses, and we all fall somewhere on a bell-shaped curve for performance of each of these various tasks. People who shake out on the extremes ends in one particular area probably look like textbook definitions of specific illnesses (a "pure" mood disorder with no other comorbidities). That's rare. Looking at it even just from this sort of statistical model, one would expect that, for any given disorder, the number of people who unmistakably qualify for a specific diagnosis would be just a fraction of those who almost qualify. These "subclinical" cases are what Drs. Ratey and Johnson refer to as "shadow syndromes." They go a step further and assert that these people actually suffer more from mental illness, because they slip through the cracks. They are not quite sick enough to find themselves needing treatment, but they are impaired by their symptoms. It's an important perspective that is explained in simple, readable terms in the first part of the text. The second part then breaks the shadow syndromes down into specific "mild" mental illnesses based on the traditional categories. So just imagine how densely the comorbidities can layer now. Is there anyone motivated to pick up this book that won't conclude that they have masked depression, are slightly bipolar, have a subthreshold intermittent rage disorder, mild attention deficit disorder, a touch of "autistic echoes" and are a shadow addicts? Then what are the

Good Explanations of Personality Differences

This book clarifies many aspects of our personalities, helping us to understand why many mental disorders are just one extreme in a continuous range of types, and provides some hints as to why many of those types have advantages and disadvantages that would explain why such a range of personalities ought to exist. I especially enjoyed their theory about how a smaller cerebellum could explain a number of different symptoms of a nerdy (mildly autistic) personality. I suspect it isn't exactly right, but it explains a good deal more than any alternative I've seen. One warning - this isn't very valuable as a self-help book. It should be read mainly to improve your understanding of the human mind, not as a means of changing it.

A beautiful job! Don't miss out.

When one has suffered as intensely and for as long with many of the mental disorders described in this book--both major and mild--as I and 4 generations in my family have, FERVENT applause goes to Dr. Ratey for his elegant work. I can attest to his astonishing expertise and extraordinary compassion in this practical, uplifting, fascinating book. The authors make it look easy, but don't be deceived by the lack of jargon. The data is sound. Perhaps your interior life isn't as "interesting" as mine (bipolar II (hypomania), OCD, ADD, a soupcon of autism, a touch of Tourette's, and an eating disorder). You will still learn a lot and enjoy the process. I gained more profound personal insights in one brisk reading of Shadow Syndromes than I did in the last 40 years of slogging from crisis to crisis. Seeing some answers to my deepest, scariest questions about my conditions both moved and elated me. If the truth makes you free, then I am soaring right over the rainbow!

Shadow Syndromes

EVERYONE should read this book! It is a book for those persons who have always felt mildly out of sync with others and also for family members who have someone in the family who suffers from depression or who is manic depressive. There is a wonderful section on obsessive compulsive disorder and also those who are ADD. It is a value for the money. Buy it and read it. You will be glad you did.

Plain English Explanations

Shadow Syndromes is extremely helpful in it's descriptive language describing the many facets of bi-polar behavior. It shows the definate link between manic-depression, alcoholism,obsessive compulsive behavior and others.The authors have used common terms to describe behavior and symptoms. This book has an excellent index which can be used for a quick and easy reference guide.I highly recommend it to sufferers of bi-polar illness as well as their spouses and families.