Kay R. Jamison (edit name/settings)

Kay Redfield Jamison sparked an international and professional controversy when she released an intimate memoir detailing her effort to wrestle her manic depressive illness while maintaining her role as a psychiatrist. Many in the field of psychology and psychiatry dismissed her candor as the whim of an young professional blundering through professional gaffs. Nobody spoke of these things with such nonchalance. However, Jamison never treated the topic with any degree of nonchalance. Instead, she plunged into research to familiarize herself with the demons that afflicted her. And in the process she brought the world to a close familiarity with mental illness. The award of her tireless devotion to popularizing the human plight of mental illness has been a widespread and burgeoning acceptance and understanding--as well as increased and more human research into mental illness.

Since her debut memoir, she released two books (Exuberance and Touched with Fire) that provide a profound argument for a link between human creativity and mania or hypomania. These arguments have provoked similar considerations (e.g. Emily Martin's Bipolar Expeditions or Ghaemi's A First Rate Madness) and exploration into a possible link and a potential exploitation by Western society of hypomanic temperaments.

Jamison devoted the entirety of Night Falls Fast to the intent of educating readers about the process of suicide and the victims it consumes. Again Jamison draws on personal experience and paints an emotional and provocative portrait of suicide. She paints an equally endearing picture of the hope that awaits survivors and her own success in surmounting the draw of suicide.

In Nothing Was the Same, Jamison tells of the passing of her husband and the ensuing grief that the loss caused. She reflects on many of the factors that helped her manage her manic depression and deny further attempts to commit suicide. The most obvious of these factors was the love of her husband combined with his analytic management of Jamison's mood swings. According to Jamison, her husband maintained copious notes and tried to prevent himself the indulgence of personal slight when her emotional bouts accompanied hurts aimed at him. But she reflects on the nature of her grief and distinguishes from depression, with the latter being a life-draining and uncontrollable force and the former being a very focused and reasonable and manageable summation.

Jamison continues to conduct research and, likely, write books. To date, she is still an active figure at John Hopkins University and a ready spokesperson for the rights of individuals with mental illnesses, especially manic depressive illness