Bipolar Disorder Daily News Blog

Noted Bipolar Author Publishes New Book

Kay Jamison, the well-known psychologist and author with bipolar disorder has published a new book titled "Exuberance".

Salon.com published a good interview with her last week - here is a short excerpt:

"Over the last decade, psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison has become perhaps our foremost chronicler of the mind's darkest weather. In 1993 she published "Touched with Fire," her exploration of the relation between creative genius and manic depression, and followed that up in 1995 with "An Unquiet Mind," a memoir of her own struggle with the illness. "Night Falls Fast," her most recent book, studied suicide. So it might come as a bit of a shock to find her cavorting with the likes of Tigger, rough-riding Teddy Roosevelt, and other exceptionally irrepressible characters in her latest book, "Exuberance," which attempts to define what it's like to be touched with another, more joyful, sort of fire.

Exuberance, Jamison writes, "denotes a mood or temperament of joyfulness, ebullience, and high spirits, a state of overflowing energy and delight. It is more energetic than joy and enthusiasm but less intense, although of longer duration, than ecstasy." It's got the dynamism that marks the manic half of manic depression -- but without the danger of falling into psychosis or debilitating lows."

More info:

Baltimore Sun review of new book:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-bk.exuberance03oct03,0,4368123.story?coll=bal-health-headlines

For full story - see:
www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/10/11/exuberance/