Healing Manic Depression and Depression - Mary Beth Smith - Bog

After unbearable pressure at home and at work, the author became manic and crashed her car into a tree thinking she would become reincarnated. After going to an incompetent psychiatrist, she had the enormous good luck to switch to the best psychiatrist in the county. Here she tells her own story along with chapters on what bipolar disorder is, how cognitive therapy helps and how 12 step programs with their emphasis on a spiritual experience help. She describes what mental health is and what self-actualization is, based on examples from Lincoln's life and Abraham Maslow's writings. The author describes how a person's neuroses and narcissism can be healed. But once healed, the bipolar person still needs medication in the same way a person with diabetes needs insulin.