Reviews

Welcome to My Country: A Therapist's Memoir of Madness by Lauren Slater

alisarae's review

3.0

A poetic memoir more about how the author's biases and perspective of mental health clients has changed through her practice than about the patients themselves.

Full review on Papercuttts.

glendaleereads's review

3.0

Some of the stories brought tears to my eyes. This book is a reminder that mental health is something that we can’t always see or understand. We have to have more empathy for people with mental illness. The stories here were touching and Slater has a good way with prose. This is her second book I have read that is not fiction and I did enjoy it.

merilevine's review

5.0

i honestly really liked it lol. finished it in one sitting and i really enjoyed the plot

lory_enterenchanted's review

challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

I found this book through the excerpt included in You Can't Make This Stuff Up, the last chapter titled "Three Spheres." It's a series of interconnected essays exploring the author's interactions with the so-called mentally ill, and glancing at her own past mental struggles. I found the mannered, poetic prose to be very effective at reaching toward expression of impossible to express, liminal experiences...others may find it opaque and irritating. But that will probably be only if you have had no experience of such states yourself.

That lack of experience, or the ability to admit those dark and wordless places in ourselves, is probably what produces the distance between "therapist" and patient" that Slater urges us to break down. "My patient and I sit down, look at each other. I see myself in her. I trust she sees herself in me. This is where we begin." A moving, heart-ful yet not at all sentimental dive into some of the deepest mysteries of being human. I won't soon forget this.

mysta's review

2.0

The book was interesting when she actually talked directly about the patients, and she had a few flashes of insight regarding general psychological theories that I was glad to have come across. But overall very little of the book seemed to be concrete stories, only vignettes of a few encounters with a few individuals and very little detail about how (or even if) those individuals changed over the course of their therapy. I was often left with more questions about the nature of the individual's disorder than answers, and I think there was an attempt to make up for this lack of detail with flowery and distracting language. The book would have benefited from cutting at least half of the similes and metaphors, and replacing them with actual information and a followable "plot" outlining each individual's growth. While sometimes poetic and an appropriate way to describe something that is often difficult to describe, the farther into the book I read, the more nonsensical, pretentious, and uncomfortably personal these metaphors became. It often felt like I was reading a high school English assignment in which a student was grasping to find imagery - any imagery - in order to meet a requirement, rather than to actually enrich the text.

crowyhead's review

4.0

This is a fascinating and often moving account of a therapist's work with her clients, particularly the schizophrenic residents of a group home. The most moving chapter deals with her work with a woman who has borderline personality disorder and is also bulimic; treating her entails going back to the hospital where Slater herself was hospitalized multiple times for the same disorders, and the encounter is gripping and ultimately gorgeous.

library_lurker's review against another edition

4.0

poet works in a psych ward. i have a similar work situation going on & it was really validating to read this book, written by someone who is sensitive & observant. this shit hits us hard sometimes. the details are wonderful & the overall effect is extremely resonant. get it!

andbirds's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

joellie's review

2.0

The writing is stilted and doesn’t flow. The book starts with the author extolling her virtues and great ideas and ends with her wanting us to feel sorry for her and the struggles she went through.

memarq0's review

3.0

I was conflicted about this book after having read “Lying” many, many years ago (in that one, Slater’s unreliable narration is a necessary part of the structure). Here, while I appreciated (“enjoyed” is the wrong word) the patient vignettes, I wasn’t always sure about Slater’s role in their treatment and the brevity of the book didn’t help that issue.