A Psychiatrist Recollects: Stories from the Lives of Psychiatric Patients

This collection of stories, based upon the lives of psychiatric patients, articulates the span of the field as perceived through a uniquely literary sensibility. Portraying a spectrum of human situations drawn from his clinical experience - instances of suicide, psychotic behaviour, depression in old age, and other conditions encountered frequently in the learning and practice of psychiatry - Dr Bowers senses the human spirit at work in the lives of even his most forlorn patients. With compassion and unusual sensitivity, he demonstrates that behind what might appear to be the most bizarre of mental phenomena is a human life afflicted, but with aspirations and expectations shared by all of us. By allowing the clinical situation to speak for itself, the author presents each patient's life story in such a way as to highlight the essence of his profession - the fundamental importance of relationships and the impact of human interaction which, in varied settings and circumstances, has the ultimate power to create or destory.