Title: Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
Author: Susannah Cahalan
Publisher: Free Press
Year: 2012
264 pages
A very good account of physiologically triggered psychosis and dementia that illustrates the importance of good clinical interviewing to determine etiology and, therefore, appropriate treatment. As Cahalan points out, without a good differential diagnostic process, she probably would have wound up on a back ward and, had the illness continued to progress, probably would have died young.
Cahalan does a good job of reconstructing her experiences. I appreciate her comments about the nature of memory. I'd have liked more medical data, but she outlines her situation coherently.
My only criticism is that she has a throwaway line about Sybil that uncritically repeats Nathan's claim, which is far from well-substantiated and is contested. If Cahalan weren't a journalist I wouldn't mention this, but it was jarring in that context.
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