Whispers: The Voices of Paranoia by Ronald K. Siegel
From a renowned scientist, a vivid and utterly fascinating (Los Angeles Times) exploration of the suspicion, terror, and rage that possess the mind of the paranoid. The paranoid inhabits a different realm of being, one that tilts the world ever so slightly. Delusions and hallucinations feed on each other, flourishing with amazing speed. Locked in a new mode of thinking the paranoid views life as from a cell. In a dozen case studies Dr. Ronald Siegel takes us on a chilling but mesmerizing journey into the dark mysteries of the human mind. We meet a woman who hears her teeth whispering; a beautiful ballet dancer who is in love with a shadow; a UCLA student who believes Hitler is speaking to him through a stolen computer program; and a cocaine addict for whom the invasion of imaginary bugs was strong enough to drive him to commit murder. A dedicated and compassionate scientist, Dr. Siegel follows his patients into the shadowlands where paranoia flourishes-drug addiction, prison, organized crime, and terrorism often at risk to himself. He explores mild cases of patients who vaguely believe something is stalking them to serious cases of patients with apocalyptic visions so intense that they shake the foundations of an entire community. Fascinating, enlightening, and immersive, reading Whispers is like reading about an exotic and dangerous travel adventure (The Washington Post). Editorial Reviews Pharmacologist Siegel brilliantly explores the mind of the paranoid in this chilling, wholly engrossing report. His 12 case studies include a cocaine-addicted ballet dancer who murders a coke dealer after developing an erotic fixation on him, an aerospace inventor who believes his enemies have launched a satellite to transmit messages into his brain, a laid-off insurance salesman-turned-God's-prophet, and a frail octogenarian convinced that her dentist has implanted a spying device in her whispering'' teeth. Siegel ( Intoxication ), a UCLA research professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, begins by analyzing Hitler's paranoid hatred of Jews, made more virulent, the author believes, by amphetamine addiction. Next we meet a paranoid neo-Nazi graduate student at UCLA, who created a crude computer program to simulate Hitler's mind. Siegel closes with a look at Ernest Hemingway's paranoid final year, which culminated with his suicide. This startling survey suggests there is a continuum of paranoia and that paranoid episodes can be triggered by drugs, thyroid disorders, pernicious anemia or psychological traumas such as false arrest, social isolation or an intensely humiliating episode. (June) - Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly This book offers a compelling series of vignettes depicting experiences of paranoia. By providing an explanatory connection between his subjects' past histories, personalities, and present experiences, Siegel creates a believable setting for the dramatic events, thoughts of persecution, and feelings of panic or terror that play out in the lives of the paranoid. Many of the cases reveal drug abuse or drug intoxication at their centers. Nevertheless, each has its own merits. The author's investigation of the facts and his vivid descriptions are skillfully recorded, as is his narration of his own paranoid experience. For most general collections.-Bonnie Hoffman, Stony Brook, N.Y. - Library Journal
Publication Details
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Binding: Paperback
Published by: Simon & Schuster: , 1996
Edition:
ISBN: 9780684802855 | 0684802856
320 pages.
Book Condition: Very Good
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