28.1.09

An Unquiet Mind

'There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty.

There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow.....' 

Kay Redfield Jamison is a psychologist who has been diagnosed with manic depression (bi-polar affective disorder). In this lecture she describes her experience of this disorder and her research into it's causes and treatment.


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