| Abstract: | Reviews the book, Disturbances of the mind by Douwe Draaisma and translated by Barbara Fasting (see record 2010-04898-000). Draaisma is an excellent storyteller. He gets the reader to stand on tiptoe to look over the barriers of time and place into specific biographic scenes and then quickly zooms out for a historical perspective. For North American readers, this Dutch psychologist and historian is a welcome guide on the journey to understand the work and lives of 11 European eponym-bearers: Bonnet, Parkinson, Broca, Jackson, Korsakoff, Gilles de la Tourette, Alzheimer, Brodmann, Clérambault, Capgras, and Asperger. Draaisma notes that he strove to be a “resurrectionist” (p. 3) of the thoughts, feelings, and context of these individuals. In achieving this objective he engenders empathy for past and present clinician-scientists and their patients and creates a work that will interest, engage, and even inspire educated readers outside the health professions as well as students and professionals in neurology, psychiatry, and psychology. Single chapters might be useful for support groups dealing with one of the eponymous disorders. My most serious criticism is Draaisma’s lack of a clear statement of the limits of his coverage of current research. His brief summary of current understanding of each eponymous disorder provides a welcome sense of integration, but, without qualification by the author, some readers may mistake this material for a comprehensive review. In particular I worried about this possibility when I read the Alzheimer’s disease chapter, in which Draaisma writes that research to date “has not created a single opening in the direction of treatment” (p. 225). I strongly urge that any recommendation of the book to lay readers or undergraduate or early graduate students be accompanied by the caveat that readers not rely on the book as the sole or even primary source of information regarding the current state of knowledge regarding a given disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
