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A review by danapillar
Projections: A Story of Human Emotions by Karl Deisseroth
5.0
Fantastic book
It goes through various psychiatric illnesses in a way that acknowledges the diagnostic ambiguity between the varying and overlapping presentations of disorders that have distinct mechanisms and roots in the brain. Other books I have read take a textbook approach to disorders that acts like things are clear cut and set in stone for the stake of explanatory simplicity, this book engages with the comorbidities that sprout from coping with baseline conditions and how they must be unpicked so that a sufficient treatment can be given. It also engages with the tender line between health and pathology in individuals and across populations.
It discusses the lived realities of people struggling with these conditions with deep empathy, as well as the strengths and limitations of scientific explorations into disruptions of the human mind without getting too abstract. The book is quite compact and beautifully written. Though I tried dipping in and out of it and found that frustrating, it is the kind of book you ought to read in a handful of sittings to keep its emotional flow. The shifting between various metaphors reflects the noisy nature of reality and how we must shift between mental models to cope with the world, I particularly enjoyed the simile of threads in a fabric (as vulnerable aspects of a whole that if broken can lead to a disintegration or frailing of that whole) thoughout the book. It made me want to read poetry, do neuroscience research and work harder to understand my fellow man
It goes through various psychiatric illnesses in a way that acknowledges the diagnostic ambiguity between the varying and overlapping presentations of disorders that have distinct mechanisms and roots in the brain. Other books I have read take a textbook approach to disorders that acts like things are clear cut and set in stone for the stake of explanatory simplicity, this book engages with the comorbidities that sprout from coping with baseline conditions and how they must be unpicked so that a sufficient treatment can be given. It also engages with the tender line between health and pathology in individuals and across populations.
It discusses the lived realities of people struggling with these conditions with deep empathy, as well as the strengths and limitations of scientific explorations into disruptions of the human mind without getting too abstract. The book is quite compact and beautifully written. Though I tried dipping in and out of it and found that frustrating, it is the kind of book you ought to read in a handful of sittings to keep its emotional flow. The shifting between various metaphors reflects the noisy nature of reality and how we must shift between mental models to cope with the world, I particularly enjoyed the simile of threads in a fabric (as vulnerable aspects of a whole that if broken can lead to a disintegration or frailing of that whole) thoughout the book. It made me want to read poetry, do neuroscience research and work harder to understand my fellow man