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Biography & Autobiography. Nonfiction. In 1989, Robert B. Oxnam, the successful China scholar and president of the Asia Society, faced up to what he thought was his biggest personal challenge: alcoholism. But this dependency masked a problem far more serious: Multiple Personality Disorder. At the peak of his professional career, after having led the Asia Society for nearly a decade, Oxnam was haunted by periodic blackouts and episodic rages. After his family and friends intervened, Oxnam received help from a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffery Smith, and entered a rehab center. It wasn�??t until 1990 during a session with Dr. Smith that the first of Oxnam�??s eleven alternate personalities �?? an angry young boy named Tommy �?? suddenly emerged. With Dr. Smith�??s help, Oxnam began the exhausting and fascinating process of uncovering his many personalities and the childhood trauma that caused his condition. "A Fractured Mind" is the powerful and moving story of one person�??s struggle with this terrifying illness. The audiob… (more)
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Instead of a guide it's just a tale of a person and his system dealing with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), or Multiple personality disorder (MPD) as it was formeraly labelled by psychological professionals. It was formatted as a biograophy of Robert and his alts in the system. It did raise questions and thoughts for myself and my system to consider that was eye opening. Not in a negative way or a positive one, just in a surprising way.
The book was an excellent and straight forward read. I was able to read this 300 page book in one day and makes notes of things to come back to, think on and process later.
I feel it's a must read for anyone with this disorder, living with someone with it or treating someone as the therapist. His psychiatrist's excerpts are mingled throughout the pages as he interacts with Robert's complete system through it's intergration and many changes. As well as writing a bit of a summary of Robert's case at the end of the book that was quite insightful and moving.
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I recommend this to anyone with an interest in psychiatric disorders, and, if possible, listen to the audiobook and hear the words in the author's own voices!
What's good:
It contains a fair bit of information on the sessions and work with his therapist. Also, there's a lot description of his inner world, how it's
What's not so good:
I would've appreciated more information about the therapy. Though, he writes well, Oxnam doesn't succeed in injecting much emotion; much of the writing felt pretty flat to me. I could've done without the extensive descriptions of his lavish wedding and hanging out/working with various famous people. He acknowledges that he's a name-dropper (or at least the personality who did most of the writing is), but that self-knowledge didn't seem to lead to excising these superfluous parts of the book. Though, in his defense, he tends to use these to illustrate how the various personalities help and hinder him in the situations.